Mekas
December, 1951
I have tried.
I have done everything
to be just like everybody else.
I have tried to be down to earth.
Digging my hands deep
into the sand pile
on Sixth Avenue.
Touching the ground
with my bare feet.
But I remain a stranger here.
There is a distance
between me and every building,
every street, every face.
So I fall back on fantasies,
memories, dreams.
Yes, even the sounds I write
have a different meaning to me.
The truck that cleans the street,
or the cars.
The movements, voices, forms.
I perceive them
but I don’t understand them.
They don’t have an echo
in the deep cells of my body, no.
I walk through this city
day and night
without really understanding it.
None of this makes sense,
it just happens,
exists just like me,
but it is
as if we were two strangers.
(I had nowhere to go, Jonas Mekas, journal entry from december 1951; published by Spector Books)