What do you mean there’s nothing? Then how can you talk and cry, what words are you frightened with, which ones do you call out in your sleep? Don’t nighttime cries roam inside you, a thudding twilight murmur, a fresh morning shriek? There they are words-don’t you recognize them? They’re writhing inside you, trying to get out! There they are! They’re yours! From wood, stone, roots, growing in strength, a dull mooing and whining in the gut is trying to get out a piece of tongue curls, the torn nostrils swell in torment. “I only wanted books-nothing more-only books, only words, it was never anything but words-give them to me, I don’t have any! Look, see, I don’t have any! Look, I’m naked, barefoot, I’m standing before you-nothing in my pants pockets, nothing under my shirt or under my arm! They’re not stuck in my beard! Inside-look-there aren’t any inside either-everything’s been turned inside out, there’s nothing there! Only guts! I’m hungry! I’m tormented!.

The slynx