‘D for Derrida, D for Desire’ — Ghost Dance
1.
In a letter to his would-be-lover Milena Jesenska, Franz Kafka writes:
‘Writing letters is actually an intercourse with ghosts and by no means just with the ghost of the addressee, but also with one’s own ghost, which secretly evolves inside the letter one is writing or even in a whole series of letters, where one letter corroborates another and can refer to it as witness. How did people ever get the idea they could communicate with one another by letter!
Writing letters means exposing oneself to the ghosts, who are greedily waiting precisely for that. Written kisses never arrive at their destination; the ghosts drink them up along the way.’ [1]
Language is a ghost, it vanishes all things.
/
Reverse this equation and make a ghost of desire:
1. desire vanishes its object without exhausting it
2. desire is astonished by, but can never possess, the absolute negativity of the Other
3. pleasure takes its pleasure in deferral
Boo
/
In French, a billet-doux is a ‘sweet note’ passed between lovers. But a ‘billet’ is also a ‘ticket’, or an ‘order for one person to pay another’. When I write you a love letter, I am demanding something from you. This demand vanishes at the moment of its appearance and is thus, unanswerable.
The love letter is purloined by the impossibility of its arrival
The love letter is the saboteur of the ontological (read, amorous) subject
/
I read somewhere that ‘the deferred fuck is writing’ [2]
Does all writing begin with a hot, ghostly absence?
/
Love letters do not describe or relate, but are ‘essentially messages of themselves’: they turn eros into logos [3]
In other words, writers don’t fuck, they flirt
— they go on and on.
2.
On the dating application Hinge, the love letter is transformed into a virtual rose, which can be affixed to an image or a written prompt on someone’s profile. But like the love letter, roses are never directed at their recipient. They are not ‘for’ or ‘to’, but point back toward the sender.
A rose by any other name smells like nothing. It smells like a thirsty ghost.
/
S tells me that she never receives roses, only flame emojis. She asks: ‘if the virtual rose is a symbolic love letter, is the virtual flame a symbolic fuck?’
. . .
/
I can be ghosted by a ‘ghost’, but I can also be made a ghost.
The Other vanishes and I am vanished within the Other: I am disembodied, phantomized
. . .
ghosting
noun
1. the appearance of a ghost or secondary image on a television or other display screen
2. the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication
The only remainder of my body is the shadow cast by ‘a desire restrained in its momentum’ [4].
/
Two truths and a lie:
Sex exhausts its object?
Sex is desire’s blind spot?
Sex is swollen with spirits?
References
[1] Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena, translated by Philip Boehm (NY: Schocken Books, 2015), 230.
[2] Kate Zambreno, To Write As If Already Dead (NY: Columbia University Press, 2021), 99.
[3] Julia Kristeva, ‘The Troubadours: From “Great Courtly Romance” To Allegorical Narrative’ in Tales of Love, translated by Leon S. Roudiez (NY: Columbia University Press, 1987), 295.
[4] Anne Dufourmantelle, The Power of Gentleness, translated by Katherine Payne and Vincent Sallé (NY: Fordham University Press, 2018), 71.
Toyah Webb is a writer and artist based in Sydney/Eora. Her latest publications can be found in Canadian Literature 247, REPLIKA, eel mag, min-a-rets, and Poetry New Zealand Yearbook. Her micro-chapbook THE ARCHIVE AS A SITE OF TENDER FORGETTING was published by Ghost City Press this winter. Toyah lives, works, and writes on unceded Gadigal land. She pays her respects to the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.
Issue 46: Ghost
Guest edited by Xanthe Dobbie.
These works were commissioned for the issue:
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‘D for Derrida, D for Desire’ — Ghost Dance
1.
In a letter to his would-be-lover Milena Jesenska, Franz Kafka writes:
‘Writing letters is actually an intercourse with ghosts and by no means just with the ghost of the addressee, but also with one’s own ghost, which secretly evolves inside the letter one is writing or even in a whole series of letters, where one letter corroborates another and can refer to it as witness. How did people ever get the idea they could communicate with one another by letter!
Writing letters means exposing oneself to the ghosts, who are greedily waiting precisely for that. Written kisses never arrive at their destination; the ghosts drink them up along the way.’ [1]
Language is a ghost, it vanishes all things.
/
Reverse this equation and make a ghost of desire:
1. desire vanishes its object without exhausting it
2. desire is astonished by, but can never possess, the absolute negativity of the Other
3. pleasure takes its pleasure in deferral
Boo
/
In French, a billet-doux is a ‘sweet note’ passed between lovers. But a ‘billet’ is also a ‘ticket’, or an ‘order for one person to pay another’. When I write you a love letter, I am demanding something from you. This demand vanishes at the moment of its appearance and is thus, unanswerable.
The love letter is purloined by the impossibility of its arrival
The love letter is the saboteur of the ontological (read, amorous) subject
/
I read somewhere that ‘the deferred fuck is writing’ [2]
Does all writing begin with a hot, ghostly absence?
/
Love letters do not describe or relate, but are ‘essentially messages of themselves’: they turn eros into logos [3]
In other words, writers don’t fuck, they flirt
— they go on and on.
2.
On the dating application Hinge, the love letter is transformed into a virtual rose, which can be affixed to an image or a written prompt on someone’s profile. But like the love letter, roses are never directed at their recipient. They are not ‘for’ or ‘to’, but point back toward the sender.
A rose by any other name smells like nothing. It smells like a thirsty ghost.
/
S tells me that she never receives roses, only flame emojis. She asks: ‘if the virtual rose is a symbolic love letter, is the virtual flame a symbolic fuck?’
I begin thinking about this. If writing is a ‘deferred fuck’, is the deferral of writing a fuck?
Without heat, desire goes cold
[Flame] breaks the erotic circuit
[Flame] is the dead end of desire
. . .
/
I can be ghosted by a ‘ghost’, but I can also be made a ghost.
The Other vanishes and I am vanished within the Other: I am disembodied, phantomized
. . .
ghosting
noun
1. the appearance of a ghost or secondary image on a television or other display screen
2. the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication
The only remainder of my body is the shadow cast by ‘a desire restrained in its momentum’ [4].
/
Two truths and a lie:
Sex exhausts its object?
Sex is desire’s blind spot?
Sex is swollen with spirits?
References
[1] Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena, translated by Philip Boehm (NY: Schocken Books, 2015), 230.
[2] Kate Zambreno, To Write As If Already Dead (NY: Columbia University Press, 2021), 99.
[3] Julia Kristeva, ‘The Troubadours: From “Great Courtly Romance” To Allegorical Narrative’ in Tales of Love, translated by Leon S. Roudiez (NY: Columbia University Press, 1987), 295.
[4] Anne Dufourmantelle, The Power of Gentleness, translated by Katherine Payne and Vincent Sallé (NY: Fordham University Press, 2018), 71.
Toyah Webb is a writer and artist based in Sydney/Eora. Her latest publications can be found in Canadian Literature 247, REPLIKA, eel mag, min-a-rets, and Poetry New Zealand Yearbook. Her micro-chapbook THE ARCHIVE AS A SITE OF TENDER FORGETTING was published by Ghost City Press this winter. Toyah lives, works, and writes on unceded Gadigal land. She pays her respects to the traditional custodians of the Eora Nation.
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Runway Journal is produced by a voluntary board and pay our contributors above industry rates. If you have found some delight in this content, please consider a one-time or recurring monthly donation.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches.
We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway is supported by
