i.
There was music playing. The TV was on mute.
It was the only source of light.
He kept talking in Beatles trivia. She pretended to listen.
ii.
I’m trying to figure out how to write. I’m not talking about honing a technical ability.
I mean: how do I write autobiographical fiction? Nothing ever happens to me. I never do anything.
Is life as I live it enough?
I never talk to anyone. I never reveal myself to anyone. If I write a story of intimacy, is it false?
I have a hunger to paint the world as it is to me. Do I starve or do I reveal myself?
Maybe: I can hide like Pessoa under heteronyms; lock up my writing inside a house, inside a room, inside a chest like Dickinson; or disappear with Lila without a trace.
I need to blot myself out from my own stories. Paint over a portrait with a landscape.