Thinking About The Dying Part Of Death

thinking about the dying part of death

someone new. new face. no face. i want to feel at peace. i know better. i know better. can’t think. frantic. switching between. switching. you’re killing me.

i want to be beautiful. i want to be a goldfinch that just slammed into a window, all i wanted was to be warm inside. i want to be the blood spreading over the tracks, all i want is to give agates their red hue, i want to give back to nature. (i want to swallow batteries, down blood thinners and sit in a garage with all the cars running.) disintegrate from the inside out.

there’s a difference between zoning out and derealizing. zoning out so bad you’re floating through life like nothing more than a ghost. can’t even force myself to stay present, to get out of my head. i wasn’t nervous, but i notice as i start to present that i (slip to the back of my mind) and my words became a stream of unrecognizable dialogue. i can’t stay here, can’t stay present, i wonder if my professor knows i’m not here, knows i’m at the back of my head. i’ve been told i’m a shit friend, he said he didn’t stick around because i was nice. don’t know what he saw in m((e if we hated each other) so m)u))ch.

time is of the essence, “well executed,” she tells me. thanks, you didn’t read my suicide note in the background. everyone’s been eyeing it up.

i keep dreaming of dying terrible deaths. homecoming queen dies in a tragic car accident (no details were given.) i watched rollercoasters fly off their tracks and crash into each other mid-air. gunshots go off in a crowd and everyone runs. (i keep all my secrets in parentheses.)

you used to think maybe i was happier if i was having dreams at night. this is all just one long fucked up drawn out entry in (dear s,)

i’ve taken the pills, i’ve parked by the tracks, but i’ve never gone through with it. my therapist knows i have these thoughts but i won’t tell her how i’ll do it. she asks all the wrong questions.

(i jerk the wheel of my car on black ice just to see if i care enough to live.) but who doesn’t? we’re all fucking miserable.

because here at uni, i’ve been static. no one knows anything about me. no one ever asked. i don’t know anything about anyone. my friends say i’m an alcoholic in the making. i like to think there is more to me than that. but i probably am. i think i just wanna throw my life away. its so easy.

squeeze all the toothpaste out of the tube. punch a transphobe. smoke a cig. drink just to feel. drive somewhere far away. sleep in your car. spend all your savings. and then die. i’d be happy then.

you cross your arms. shut down.

“don’t worry about me, i’ve got a lot on my mind”

i smile as i turn the conversation back around to you. its beautiful, all the words come pouring out of you. you sound like you might cry. there might be something wrong with me, because i want you to cry.

maybe i just want you to be comfortable with yourself around me.

you ground me.

i really do love you.

nonetheless, i listen. as i start to run through my thoughts, try to select an appropriate response, you usually end up speaking again. i hope you don’t mistake my silence for not giving a fuck. if i voiced every thought in my head around you, you’d never be able to get a word in otherwise.

caretaking and grief (i’m the victim, i’m the saint)

jumpy jittery like i have really bad anxiety, shaking and feeling weak like i have low blood sugar. i’m drinking milk tea, 268 calories. what a specific number. 55g carbs. can’t imagine i have low blood sugar. but maybe its something else, like the first three drags off a cigarette, the first three i’ve had in a few days. i’m not supposed to smoke on these meds, i wonder what high blood pressure feels like. i just wanna go for a walk and feel stupid dizzy, stupid head spins. but i’ve got to go to class. my lips bleed when i speak, they’re so chapped. and my kidneys are in agony, i don’t remember the last time i had more than a sip of water (just to down my pills).

but maybe its something else completely.

i woke up this morning to a winter wonderland snow globe scene outside my window. there’s a tv in front of my bed now. new old clothes in my closet. i will not remember how they got here until a few hours later. and my mother walks in, asks where the usb is. i will not remember why she needs it until a few hours later. she goes into her office, and i turn on this new old tv. i’m still figuring out how to connect my phone, or what i should even watch. but my mother comes back in with tears in her eyes and asks me to test the usb. i will not remember what i am supposed to be testing until few hours later. the snow isn’t letting up so i better get going. roads are slick, car is light, car starts slipping, i slow down. i make it to campus without crashing. i’m frigid on .4 of my walk, i cut through a building, make it to class. i’m so distracted, i barely take notes.

i walk down three flights of stairs. take a right, out the back door. my legs feel shaky, like i may buckle and fall down, down, down, two blocks until my next building, where i climb up another three flights of stairs. it's bright white in here, probably painted within the past year. the stairwell reeks of fresh paint. at the top of these stairs is a waiting room. no one hardly comes up here.  there’s three massive paned windows, and there’s my beautiful snow globe scene. its the shitty type of scene my grandmother would take a picture of and cherish. i start to grab my phone to send her a picture,

and my body goes cold.

she’s dead, remember?

its only been a few days and i’ve been,,,,, i’ve been gone. i don’t think i’ve had a single thought in my head since wednesday after 10:45am. and i’ve been running nonstop. i listened to you screaming for the last eight hours of your life. and i never got to say goodbye. i don’t think i ever would have. i would always tell you, “i’ll see you when i’m back tomorrow,” but this time there was no tomorrow. you were still breathing fine when i left you. sure it was slow, almost erratic, and in so much pain. i remember the last time i hugged you. you weren’t speaking anymore, but you had enough in you to gently squeeze me when i reached down to hug you. and the last thing you told me was that you loved me, but that was far before you hugged me. i miss you already. today i snapped a picture of that window scene and texted it to you, knowing fully well my mother had your phone. and i started to cry. people saw me, i know they did, but they must understand. everyone’s dealt with death. and if they haven't, they will. my god, i miss you already. god is a little bastard, the universe know exactly what it was doing to spark this chain reaction of events that ended in bittersweet memories of seventeenths and weekend trips to a clinical spare bedroom. its only been four days, is your body even cold yet? i’ve been told you don’t even look like you in the casket. they say you look good but its nothing like you. i want to see you again but i guess all we get is body that once possessed you. i wish this, i wish that.

today i watched them open the casket to reveal your deflated hands, sunken in eyes, skin i could (pull just like clay). gums sewn shut. body drained and pumped with chemicals. your once yellow skin turned “normal,” i don’t want to look, this isn’t you. i don't want your face in my memories to replaced with this lifeless thing in a rented casket. i don’t remember other bodies looking as dead as yours did. but now you’re being incinerated in some oven, mixing ashes with remnants of someone else’s loved ones and past pets. today it maybe started to feel final. it came over me for a second or two, tears started to well up, but the antidepressants kicked in and worked their magic. i don’t feel real, i don’t feel like this is really me. not really you.

i was never going to say goodbye. i expected you to live forever, that was the expectation everyone had in mind. and no one had time to grieve. there’s a difference between watching someone die over the course of six weeks, and watching someone slowly lose themselves over the course of twelve years. three years on hospice. my name is cathy, my name is ann, my name was everyone but who i am. i have four dogs in a world i do not live in. we’re at the park in a bedroom. there’s these really good orange towels in the laundry room. and now her apartment is collecting dust while we wait for the heartlessness of a judge to hear us out. like their first day on earth has never happened, yet they have eight years of law school programmed into their tiny little baby brains. but besides the point, i miss you but i don’t know if this is really happening or not. and it doesn’t hurt until i’m alone, or with people. so it really all hurt but doesn’t hurt. and no one knew what to expect.

today i watched them put your rented casket in a silver hearse. bells ring. it snows. i notice its a cadillac, with a leather exterior. where does one find things like this? and what happens if a hearse crashes into an ambulance? and what if they all die? what’s then? i try not to think of all things that could possibly go wrong, ever. the bells switch from the hourly tune, to background noise to send her off. who thinks of these things, and who controls it? the funeral director smiles and tells us to go inside, enjoy the catered meal my family put together and payed for.

none of this feels right, none of this feels real, but i doubt it ever will, unless i am in the industry of loss.

predators - poetic explanation of falling in love (with me)

someone’s going to crack and i hope it isn’t me. we’re circling each other through circuits and panes of glass, we’re staring each other down through the rear view mirrors of our cars. its a game of chicken on opposite sides of a two way road. we are these fucked up pen pals. they told me to pick up an out of blue phone call, and i can only imagine you’re the one on the other end. and i may not pick up, i won’t recognize the number. but i might, i’ve spent some time trying to remember all the digits but i always got distracted. sixty two something. a seven, a six, maybe a three.

you know this isn’t your best work. i know exactly which words you added in as an afterthought, things that you insisted fit right there but ideas that could have been left in the shadows. you’re convinced you loved me. you handed over pieces of yourself. i told you from the beginning, this was a terrible idea. purple night under the popcorn ceiling stars, hand in hand eventually became bodies intertwined. you know how to make the chemicals flare up, make us feel like we can stop taking our antidepressants and feel like this could never end. i used to pass by married couple’s dimly illuminated windows at night after dropping you off, and i thought, they aren’t even feeling what i am feeling. i am the only one that has ever experienced love. but they’re just chemicals that flare up when you kiss enough, have enough late nights resting together. i feel a little less special now that we’re broken up. i realize we were just like every other set of lovers. led to the same demise as the rest of them.

someone’s going to crack and it won’t be me. and even if you called, you’d ask me, “what is your problem?” and i might shrug. i guess i’m on a mission to destroy the nothing that’s left. destroy everything beyond repair so we can never repeat this again.

its my turn to be angry.

sure, i’ve moved on but i’m allowed to revisit these feelings for some sick ass journal entry. its healthy to take my anger out on something that cannot be hurt anymore, right? and yeah, i know you read this sometimes. but that’s your problem. you know what you’ll read and what you’ll feel when you open this up. don’t know why i end everything with an explanation, an apology, and i just don’t know how to tidy up the frays on the end of this ribbon.

bizarre love triangle, truly.

jealous of a man i never liked as anything more than a casual acquaintance.

but i liked him. his music. shared glances from across the room at a party.

its odd that all my friends are dating each other.

pairing up in some way.

i don’t mind being alone. but that doesn't mean i’m not jealous of others for experiencing that type of intimacy i work so hard to find.