Strange to know someone so long and never see his face break into blush or seize into a smile. His body is a beautiful machine that ticks on time and responds to command. He’s a masterpiece of intent: a statue that never erodes, and shatters only to regenerate. Neverending, like a starfish or a cockroach. This is hypnosis, and I seem to have fallen in love with the pocket watch.

Meanwhile, “The Damn Insane Asylum” always makes me think of a different he. Since the last time we spoke, his jaw has set, his smile has settled, and he has become real to himself and unknown to me. His polaroids now are glossy and placid, missing the lesions and lacerations of the old discolored bunch. He no longer writes on the photo, no longer disfigures his body, mischaracterized and underfocused. He stands steady, looks into the camera–he has nothing to prove and nothing to plead. Just J., taking a picture of an afternoon at the beach, or of a kiss with his beautiful girlfriend, because that’s what happy young men do.

And every day I get crazier. Tonight, I could feel my body overheating and overproducing, like some outmoded assembly line–the steady whir of that unventilated motor slowly gathering heat and volume, making itself known to the room. Soon the smoke and smell will become unbearable, and the room will have to empty. Or maybe I will just shut down.

On a not unrelated note, I’ve become hopelessly addicted to Janelle Monae’s Metropolis. See why?:

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