i know i'm thinking but i'm not certain about what. my mind moves, but it does not find words. i dunk myself into a pool of water, but emerge dry. i type furiously, purposefully, but the words come out jumbled, not really words but strings of letters, numbers and symbols that were times new roman in my head but wing dings on the screen.

i think i'm thinking, but i'm confusing thought with feeling. the difficulty is that, as uncertain as i am of what i might be thinking, i'm even more unsure of what i might be feeling.

i need to say something, but something is as specific as i can be. i have words, but i do not have the right words. i have a story that i've ripped up and put back together in a different order. i have a map without a beginning or an end. i have a hundred books i've finished without starting, and a hundred books i've started without finishing. madame bovary sits on the bed, waiting. perhaps her fatal flaw -- emma bovary's, that is-- is my own. perhaps her ache for grandeur is my own. her ache for precisely what she cannot have and her boredom with precisely what she does. i too have dreams that begin the moment that they end and end the moment they begin. the problem with this sort of dream is that it is never attainable; it is in a constant state of becoming.

still, all i want is to become.