getting worn away; it’s being eroded, experience keeps
washing over it and there’s no sea wall o f words to keep it
intact, to keep it from being washed away, carried out to sea,
layer by layer, fine grains washed away, a thin surface washed
away, then some more, washed away. I am fairly worn away
in m y mind, washed out to sea. It probably doesn’t matter
anyway. People lead their little lives. T here’s not much
dignity to go around. T here’s lies in abundance, and silence for
girls who don’t tell them. I don’t want to tell them. A lie’s for
when he’s on top o f you and you got to survive him being
there until he goes; M alcolm X tried to stop saying a certain
lie, and maybe I should change from Andrea because it’s a lie.
It’s just that it’s a precious thing from my mother that she tried
to give me; she didn’t want it to be such an awful lie, I don’t
think. So I have to be the writer she tried to be— Andrea; not-
cunt— only I have to do it so it ain’t a lie. I ain’t fabricating
stories. I’m making a different kind o f story. I’m writing as
truthful as the man with his fingers, if only I can remember
and say; but I ain’t on his side. I’m on some different side. I’m
telling the truth but from a different angle. I’m the one he done
it to. The bait’s talking, honey, if she can find the words and
stay even barely alive, or even just keep the blood running; it
can’t dry up, it can’t rot. The bait’s spilling the beans. The
bait’s going to transcend the material conditions o f her
situation, fuck you very much, Mr. M arx. The bait’s going
w ay past Marx. The bait’s taking her eviscerated, bleeding self
and she ain’t putting it back together, darling, because,
frankly, she don’t know how; the bait’s a realist, babe, the
bait’s no fool, she’s just going to bleed all over you and you are
going to have to find the words to describe the stain, a stain as
big as her real life, boy; a big, nasty stain; a stain all over you,
all the blood you ever spilled; that’s the esthetic dimension,
through art she replicates the others you done it to, gets the
stain to incorporate them too. It’s coming right back on you,
sink or swim; fucking drown your head in it; give in, darling;
go down. That’s the plan, in formal terms. The bait’s got a
theory; the bait’s finding a practice, working it out; the bait’s
going to write it down and she don’t have to use words, she’ll
make signs, in blood, she’s good at bleeding, boys, the vein’s
open, boys, the bait’s got plenty, each month more and more
without dying for a certain long period o f her life, she can lose
it or use it, she works in broad strokes, she makes big gestures,
big signs; oh and honey there’s so much bait around that
there’s going to be a bloodbath in the old town tonight, when
the new art gets its start. Y ou are going to be sitting in it; the
new novel; participation, it’s called; I’m smearing it all over
you. It ain’t going to be made up; it ain’t going to be a lie; and
you are going to pay attention, directly, even though it’s by a
girl, because this time it’s on you. if I find a word, I’ll use it;
but I ain’t waiting, darling, I already waited too long. If you
was raised a boy you don’t know how to get blood off, yo u ’re
shocked, surprised, in Vietnam when you see it for the first
time and I been bleeding since I was nine, I’m used to putting
m y hands in it and I
live
. Y ou don’t give us no words for
w hat’s true so now there’s signs, a new civilization just
starting now: her name’s not-cunt and she’s just got to express
herself, say some this and that, use w hat’s there, take w hat’s
hers: her blood’s hers; your blood’s hers. Here’s the difference
between us, sweet ass: I’m using blood you already spilled;
mine; hers; cunt’s. I ain’t so dirty as to take yours. I don’t
confuse this new manifesto with being Artaud; he was on the
other side. There are sides. If he spills m y blood, it’s art. if I put
mine on him, it’s deeply not nice or good or, as they say,
interesting; it’s not interesting. There’s a certain— shall we
understate? — distaste. It’s bad manners but not rude in an
artistically valid sense. It’s just not being the right kind o f girl.
It’s deranged but not in the Rimbaud sense. It’s just not being
M arjorie Morningstar, which is the height to which you may
aspire, failed artist but eventually fine homemaker. It’s loony,
yes, it’s got some hate in it somewhere, but it ain’t revolutionary like Sade who spilled blood with style; perhaps they think a girl can’t have style but since a girl can’t really have
anything else I think I can pull it off; me and the other bait;
there’s many styles o f allure around. Huey N ew to n ’s m y
friend and I send ten percent o f any money I have to the Black
Panthers instead o f paying taxes because they’re still bombing
the fucking Vietnamese, if you can believe it. He sends me
poems and letters o f encouragement. I write him letters o f
encouragement. I’m afraid to show him any o f m y pages I
wrote because perhaps he’s not entirely cognizant o f the
problems, esthetic and political, I face. I look for signs in the
press for if he’s decent to women but there’s not too much to
see; except you have to feel some distrust. He’s leading the
revolution right now and I think the bait’s got to have a place
in it. I am saying to him that women too got to be whole; and
old people cared for; and children educated and fed; and
women not raped; I say, not raped; I say it to him, not raped.
H e’s saying the same thing back to me in his letters, except for
the women part. He is very Mao in his poem style, because it
helps him to say what he knows and gives him authority, I can
see that, it makes his simple language look strong and
purposeful, not as if he’s not too educated. It’s brilliant for that
whereas I am more lost; I can’t cover up that I don’t have
words. I can’t tell if
raped
is a word he knows or not; if he
thinks I am stupid to use it or not; if he thinks it exists or not;
because we are polite and formal and encouraging to each
other and he doesn’t say. I am working m y part out. He is
taking care o f the big, overall picture, the big needs, the great
thrust forward. I am in a fine fit o f rebellion and melancholy
and I think there’s a lot that’s possible so I am in a passion o f
revolutionary fire with a new esthetic boiling in me, except for
m y terrible times. The new esthetic started out in ignorance
and ignominy, in sadness, in forgetting; it pushed past
sadness into an overt rebellion— tear this down, tear this
apart— and it went on to create: it said, w e’ll learn to write
without words and i f it happened we will find a w ay to say so
and i f it happened to us it happened. For instance, i f it
happened to me it happened; but I don’t have enough
confidence for that, really, because maybe I’m wrong, or
maybe it’s not true, or how do you say it, but if it happened to
us, to us, you know, the ones o f us that’s the bait, then it
happened. It happened. And i f it happened, it happened. We
w ill say so. We will find a w ay to say so. We will take the