my dog ate it.

i used to enjoy arguing. i liked thinking of what came next. i had an intuition, i stated it as a point of fact. then came counterpoint. dodge. parry. thrust. first i am the point, and someone else is the counterpoint, but then (and always, really, but more and more as time passed) i'm the point and the counterpoint. i formulate a little argument to myself and i like the way it goes-- i might think it through eight or ten times, running little fingers over it, tweeking-- and then, out of habit (dodge. parry. thrust), i counter. and as it happens i get better and better at countering.

so first it's: point, point--point...point! (counter) point.
and then it's: point...counter...point...counter.
and then it's point. counter. point. counter. point.
and then it's pointcounterpointcounterpointcounter.

the counters gain. they're unanswerable. (it's not always or even generally unpleasant. when i'm thinking of a thing in the world that interests me i learn more or differently about it. but when decisiveness is called for i'm occasionally horrible, sometimes unforgivable. ideas of what to do are rejected as quickly as they occur and i stand there while the whole thing burns or grows or does whatever it does, no thanks to me.) and the day finally came when the point was overtaken (pointcounterpoincounterpoicounterpocounterpcounter) and a little part of who i was imploded, and i sat there in the middle of it for a longtime and couldn't say a goddamned thing that mattered.

why make a point when its unanswerable contradiction is right on top of it? you can't even tell them apart anymore.

this is a story-- a little argument-- that i told myself today while i walked. it's not particularly true.
[i was born/ you begin, and already each word/ makes you smaller. -n.flynn]