Like Edgar Poe’s unparticled particle, the vibrating ether which is the material/spiritual whole of existence, pervading all and containing all, matter compressed and spread thin to a radical degree simultaneously, so it is material for a moment and then not—and this is how moments exist, measured and recorded by the finest measuring devices, but not really existing at all as moments—like our universe and like our existence, which is, and which is not, the love industry is everywhere and nowhere. It has no product and is all products; it is invisible, yet everywhere seen; it has no clients, yet everyone is one; it has no advertising, and yet everything advertises it; it is completely off the radar, and yet is the radar; it is every thought, but has no thought at all.
I love someone and yet hate her; I hate her precisely because I love her to such a degree that expression and consummation of the love felt for her I instinctively know to be impossible; I think about her love in the same exact ratio as I tell no one about her, and this love is real—it belongs to circumstances and things which happened, and these occurances completely dictate what and how the love can be told and explained, and so it cannot ever be adequately told and explained, because those circumstances are gone and in the past, and are too strange and particular to explain. And these events, these circumstances, and the feelings and thoughts which accompany them, are so complex and strange, but at the same time, so plain and banal and routine, they continue to haunt and remind me of her for these reasons: the banality of the love makes it strange, the strangeness of the love makes it banal, and for this reason it resides, and cannot be banished from the mind, and only this love occupies this high place in the mind, only this love dominates, and is, but cannot be expressed or understood at all.
The love industry has no sales or tokens; every message that might be sent is not.
If I were to send a card to her on her birthday, nothing could be written on the card without it seeming hostile and inappropriate, even though the card were sent with the simplest motive of admiration and tenderness and love. The gesture would immediately be devoured by questions and guesses of ‘what does this really mean?’
If only the air were clean again.
If only the past could be scrubbed and we could start anew.
If only the love industry were not everywhere.
Then there would be somewhere she and I could go.
