The Eyelid and the Alphabet (Jean-Dominique Bauby)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
A clot
in the basilar artery
destroyed the pons

The pons
is where the brain
sends its instructions
to the body

The instructions
stopped

The mind
remained

Everything he had
ever thought
or remembered
or wanted to say
was still inside
and the only exit
was his left eyelid

[Chorus]
An assistant
sits beside the bed
and recites the alphabet

E S A R I N T U L —
arranged by frequency
not by order
because the most common letters
should arrive first

He blinks
when she reaches
the letter he needs

She writes it down
She starts again

He is writing
a book

Each word
costs him
the full alphabet
recited
as many times
as the word
has letters

I have never seen
anyone
spend time
this way

And I am time

[Verse 2]
The book
describes the sea
outside his window

It describes
the smell
of frying potatoes
from the hospital kitchen
drifting down
the corridor
and how the smell
is a cruelty
because his mouth
can no longer
close around food

It describes
a butterfly

The butterfly
is his mind
The diving bell
is his body
The eyelid
is where
the two meet

[Final Chorus]
He finished the book
in two hundred
thousand blinks

It was published
on a Thursday

He died
on a Saturday

Two days
between the book
and the death
which means
the book
was the reason
he had not yet
left

And now the book
exists
and the eyelid
does not
and the alphabet
has stopped

But the mind
that wrote it —
the mind
that composed
a paragraph
about the wind
one blink
at a time —

that mind
was never
locked in

The room was

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