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Page 136

It is socially incorrect of me to confess to being
a spacist (wanting space filled up with people),
when experts claim we are overpopulated.
I admit that I'm overpopulated. I'm just too much!
Probably you are too. But space is mostly empty.

You, too, will learn to hate a world full of
holes-where-people-should-be if ever you
lose someone -- who then keeps haunting
your every emptiness, being persistently
not there and not over there either, not
where you turn to say something clever
you heard today, not across the room or bed
or phone line, not even in your mind (can't
see the face so well now or hear the voice, only
sense the vivid absence of a should-be-there).

So you go to a group for help, and they are
to teach you trust. You fold your arms, close
your eyes and let yourself fall backwards --
no one catches you! The space between your head
and the floor lets you pass through it. CLUNK!

Oh, we've been far too nice to space, letting it
cohabit our rooms, our kitchens, our beds.
Who is with me now as I write? (Are you?)
This room is full of space -- there, where nobody is.
Nobody is noisy, distracting; nobody has no
face -- how can I tell what nobody is thinking?
Nobody crowds around me. I pace the room,
back and forth, filling up all the holes I can,
but wherever I am, nobody is everywhere else.
Nobody embraces me. Nobody, when I let words
fall from me, catches them. I trust nobody.

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