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The norms that author the self

render the self substitutable

The lie we need in order to live

dooms us to a life that is never really ours

Every drive is beset by foreignness

A game played by the coincidence that is the world

Self-discovery, stale and complete,

proves to be utterly futile

The vagueness of the person

in a mechanical world

spinning into decay and death

This silent struggle toward no end and no meaning

Bitter distress endured in secret

Foreboding which dries up all hope

Doleful heart, living in darkness

Wraithlike body on the point of death

The sodden lumber of the body

The heart’s void confronting time’s

The abyss of myself

An abyss in the very realizing