The Picture of Health

(Undated)
“THE ROOT OF THE EVIL lies in the constitution itself, in the fatal weakening of families from generation to generation… The root of the evil certainly lies there, and there’s no cure for it.” Vicenzo

Mixed states represent a critical combination of depressed feelings and thoughts combined with an exceptionally perturbed, agitated, and unpleasant physical state, usually accompanied by a heightened energy level and increased impulsivity. Thinking can range from florid psychosis or “madness” to patterns of unusually clear, fast and creative associations, to retardation so profound that no meaningful mental activity can occur.

THE RITUALS OF ECSTATIC WORSHIP, FRENETIC DANCE AND VIOLENT DEATH WERE CYCLIC IN NATURE AND TIED TO THE SEASONS
REPLICATING DEATH AND REBIRTH

12. XII. 13
Sadly most of the dreams I remember involve dear Margaret in a deceptive or compromising position, owing to the distrust I have retained. At this pace we are condemned to part acrimoniously.

Last night however I saw the King of Moths in the shape of the child E--, dark and knobby-kneed, up to his face in dirt. He dove into the ground, parting the earth with his joined hands, in a way that made me think of a kingfisher. I remember wondering how he was not crushed by the weight of stones.

As of today my condition, physical and otherwise, is greatly diminished. I am entering one of those moods, which is so much like a softening of the brain. I cannot contain myself from drinking, though I have 50% of a grade pending, and but 20% of it done, due midnight.

I have been treating my love poorly -- it is unfair to call him a wife. I say it is because I am miserly with affection, but this is false.

I saw myself hatching a yellow bird at my breast, but children are not birds. They do not go off on their own when they have grown; one is obligated to them for life. Among the things I do not have is a career and the restraint to look after myself. Here I am, picking at the flesh of my arm -- the bird is vicious as a millipede; greedy and fat, like the babe of the cuckoo, feathering my clothes with his raiment. I love him because he is a bird and not a child -- I could not bear the heir of my body inheriting the taint of my blood.

Woe be to assortative mating! Like meeting like -- birds of a feather flocking together --

There goes a saying: “the sins of the fathers shall be revisited upon the sons”. And Margaret and I, we are not the picture of health. God bless the jittering Lady Margaret, first hid behind crassitude, and, once grown, behind duty. God help me, the inflamed brain playing the scholar. Thank the configuration of our bodies, that has not cursed us with an issue that would suffer from these ailments.