Ulrike Meinhof Writes From the Dead Wing - June 16th 1972 to February 9th 1973

Ulrike Meinhof Writes From the Dead Wing - June 16th 1972 to February 9th 1973

The feeling, one’s head explodes (the feeling, the top of the skull will simply split, burst open) —
the feeling, one’s spinal column presses into one’s brain —
the feeling, one’s brain gradually shrivels up like, for example, a baked fruit —
the feeling, one is uninterruptedly, imperceptibly, under a torrent, one is remote controlled, one’s associations are hacked away —
the feeling, one pisses the soul out of one’s body, like when one cannot hold water —
the feeling, the cell moves. One wakes up, opens one’s eyes: the cell moves; afternoon, if the sun shines in, it suddenly remains still. One cannot get rid of the feeling of motion. One cannot tell whether one shivers from fever or from cold —
one cannot tell why one shivers — one freezes.
To speak at a normal volume requires an effort like that necessary to speak loudly, almost like that necessary to shout—
the feeling, one stops speaking —
one can no longer identify the meaning of words, one can only guess —
the use of sibilants — s,ss, tz, sch — is absolutely unbearable
guards, visits, the yard seems to be made of celluloid —
headaches —
flashes —
sentence construction, grammar, syntax — can no longer be controlled.
When writing two lines — by the end of the second line, one cannot remember the beginning of the first —
the feeling, internal burn-out —
the feeling, if one must say what’s wrong, if one wants to let it out, it’s like a rush of boiling water in the face, like, for example, boiling water that scalds one forever, that disfigures —
Raging aggressivity, for which no outlet exists. That’s the worst.
Clear consciousness that one has no possibility of survival; a complete breakdown of the capacity to mediate this;
Visits leave nothing. A half an hour later one can only mechanically reconstruct whether the visit was today or last week.
Compared to this, bathing once a week means: momentary thaw, a moment of rest — to stop for a couple of hours —
The feeling, time and space are interlocked —
The feeling to find oneself in an amusement park house of mirrors —
to stagger —
Afterwards: awful euphoria, that one heard something — beyond the acoustic day and night differentiation —
The feeling, time now flows, the brain again expands, the spinal column sinks down after weeks.
The feeling, as if one’s skin is thickening.