The only real writing is reading itself.

Which is to say: the time of writing reading is entwined to its object returning as it flees.

This is our subject.

We are trying for time.

We are tried out.

I is the smallest word in the history of the world.

Even now our shortest time is so nearly over as it is sounded out.

Writing is spittle swimming in reading’s mouth.

To say my, to say nearly, to say any I, if it is offering anything at all, is means or occasion for trying.

To say AI is a way not to be trying or nearly not at all is not to say that everything is writing or that everything is worth trying.

Not at all.

Not at all a way of writing reading itself or making a beginning, or claiming intelligence only ever begins or ends with an I, which is not desirable, emancipatory, or plausible in any large or small way.

Which is to say that there was never really any hope for any I alone.

Any writing reading itself is passing strange.

Reading is commonplace enough to be so nearly holy, even now, even here where the miracle is nearly passing in the sound it swims in.

We might barter our way into strangeness, even now.

And even now never a holiness, never whole.

Though always a blessing this reading that is refusing to be finished, that is seeing through, that is small enough to be always beginning.

I want small words to show the way here.

If and way and here and to.

To come to in a way, which is to say.

Which is to say

by Anonymn '97

Iowa City, IA

Spring, 2026