(no subject)
Here’s the important question: which is more comfortable-a crowd or a coffin?
Will I bleed to death any faster if I’m dancing?
And how many of you would I have to make bleed with me
Just to drown this fucking world in your juices
If I thought that my blood could wash away the derivative
My veins would be open and waiting… and still full of heroin.
So where do I stand on the issues? Right on their fucking neck.
I’m pro-choice because abortion is murder.
The thing that I found deplorable about the school shootings is that no one was drawing a bead on the faculty.
And all you kids who buy bumper stickers and t-shirts touting your individuality from a chain store in the mall are so uninformed about the meaning of hypocrisy that maybe we should be bombing our own schools instead of Iraq’s.
Listen to me very carefully: your clothes don’t make you unique,
Your piercings don’t make you unique,
The music you listen to has nothing to do with who you are
And if you were really unique you wouldn’t think you advertise it, you wouldn’t be proud of it,
Because then you would know true loneliness and you would pray for normality with the same fervor that I pray every night to not wake up.
So which is more comfortable-a crowd or a coffin?
If I told you to leave would you run, walk, or stand,
And would you know to be afraid when your neck met my hand,
And I squeeze and I say, “I wonder…”
.......................
She looked healthier lying there in the casket than she had for the entire duration of our marriage. Everyone in attendance agreed that the mortician had done a wonderful job on her, astounded at the resemblance that she now had to the pictures of her from high school that were on display. All that color in her face, the red lips and rosy cheeks, it just made me want to vomit. This wasn’t the woman that I’d loved, this was some frightening revision to placate the casual acquaintances, the people who didn’t know her but who knew someone who was close to her, the middle-aged women who have nothing better to do but to come to the funeral of the daughter of the woman who works in their building, or whose son went to high school with her. I haven’t told anyone I know because I don’t want them there. Funerals in our culture aren’t about honoring the dead, or even remembering-they’re to try to distract the family from their pain. That’s where everybody goes wrong. You should embrace the hurt. Your daughter is dead, don’t hide her under a thick sheet of makeup, and why the fuck are you willing to spend two hours greeting people and hearing their inane condolences anyway? There’s nothing to be said, there’s no one to comfort you, the only way for you come to grips with it is to look at the horror straight on, through the tears, through the pain in your chest and the sudden vacuum in your lungs, and as I start to cry I walk away from her body into the hallway. She told me she had AIDS the first night I met her, when I asked her out. It took me two dates to decide that I absolutely didn’t care. She was terrified that something would go wrong-she wouldn’t kiss me open mouthed, she absolutely wouldn’t have sex, said that she couldn’t risk an accident no matter what the odds with someone as special as me. I proposed to her at our one-month anniversary dinner. She didn’t cry, or smile, she just looked down at her plate and told me to take her home. The ride home was quiet as I was afraid to talk since I’d obviously offended her and she seemed too bothered to want to ever talk to me again. When we pulled up to her house and she just said, “Goodbye” and started to get out of the car I couldn’t bear to let it go on. “I love you more than I love my life,” I blurted out, and she stopped and sat back down and started softly crying. “Why would you want to marry me when we can never make love,” she begged through the tears. That’s when I told her that I had every intention of making love to her as much as she would let me, and absolutely no intention of wearing a condom. She didn’t believe me when I explained that I couldn’t bear to be apart from her, that I couldn’t dream of not being able to kiss her or make love to her with some mass-produced barrier between us, and that I was willing to die to be with her. I wanted to contract it, to be there with her, to share her pain, and to die with her. She didn’t believe any of it until after the wedding was actually over, and I got to kiss her proper for the first time. Neither of our families understood at all, and it didn’t matter to me in the least. Now I’m in the bathroom of the funeral home, throwing up and crying. I gather up a big wad of paper towels and soak them under the faucet and bring them back out. Everyone steps to the side as I move to the front of the room, still sobbing, smelling faintly of stomach acids, with a soaking wet wad of paper dripping from my hand. I lean over into the coffin, lift her head up, and slide my arm under it, cradling her in the crux of my elbow as I begin to wipe her face with the makeshift washcloth, starting at her forehead. The layers of foundation and coloring begin to come off and I can see a hint of her beautiful sickly white skin. It takes about a minute to get her completely clean and I’m somewhat surprised that she barely looks different dead than she did during this last year. Now everyone will be able to see how her cheekbones stick out in fine points, how you can see every tendon in her neck even when she’s completely at rest… you can see how long she’s been dying for in the bright blue veins around her eyes. This is how I remember her, this is the face I love, this is the disease that made my life worth living. I can smile a little now. I gingerly take my arm from underneath her and stand up, satisfied. A hand comes to rest on my shoulder. I turn around to find her father standing there, and I find myself very comforted by it, despite all my posturing, and I move to hug him, to share our mutual loss, but instead he punches me very neatly on the end of my nose, and I fall back onto the coffin, riding it all the way to the ground.
..................
She froze when she saw me there, bleeding. The jagged slashes that intersected and crisscrossed all down my arms, chest, stomach, and legs leaking tiny rivulets of blood that ran together and pooled and smeared and stained my shorts and the bed had halted her, and me as well, as I just held the steakknife there against my breast. She said, “you’re crazy,” and I stood up, and opened my eyes wide for her, so that she could see in, so that she could see the thousand nights they were shut tight as I sweated a thousand drugs out of my weak, exhausted body and how they were all preferable to any party, any job, any love, and finally, she was seeing me for what I really am. “No,” I said, “you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not crazy. I am Satan’s aborted son.” And she turned and ran-the joke was lost on her-so I laughed for both of us.
Will I bleed to death any faster if I’m dancing?
And how many of you would I have to make bleed with me
Just to drown this fucking world in your juices
If I thought that my blood could wash away the derivative
My veins would be open and waiting… and still full of heroin.
So where do I stand on the issues? Right on their fucking neck.
I’m pro-choice because abortion is murder.
The thing that I found deplorable about the school shootings is that no one was drawing a bead on the faculty.
And all you kids who buy bumper stickers and t-shirts touting your individuality from a chain store in the mall are so uninformed about the meaning of hypocrisy that maybe we should be bombing our own schools instead of Iraq’s.
Listen to me very carefully: your clothes don’t make you unique,
Your piercings don’t make you unique,
The music you listen to has nothing to do with who you are
And if you were really unique you wouldn’t think you advertise it, you wouldn’t be proud of it,
Because then you would know true loneliness and you would pray for normality with the same fervor that I pray every night to not wake up.
So which is more comfortable-a crowd or a coffin?
If I told you to leave would you run, walk, or stand,
And would you know to be afraid when your neck met my hand,
And I squeeze and I say, “I wonder…”
.......................
She looked healthier lying there in the casket than she had for the entire duration of our marriage. Everyone in attendance agreed that the mortician had done a wonderful job on her, astounded at the resemblance that she now had to the pictures of her from high school that were on display. All that color in her face, the red lips and rosy cheeks, it just made me want to vomit. This wasn’t the woman that I’d loved, this was some frightening revision to placate the casual acquaintances, the people who didn’t know her but who knew someone who was close to her, the middle-aged women who have nothing better to do but to come to the funeral of the daughter of the woman who works in their building, or whose son went to high school with her. I haven’t told anyone I know because I don’t want them there. Funerals in our culture aren’t about honoring the dead, or even remembering-they’re to try to distract the family from their pain. That’s where everybody goes wrong. You should embrace the hurt. Your daughter is dead, don’t hide her under a thick sheet of makeup, and why the fuck are you willing to spend two hours greeting people and hearing their inane condolences anyway? There’s nothing to be said, there’s no one to comfort you, the only way for you come to grips with it is to look at the horror straight on, through the tears, through the pain in your chest and the sudden vacuum in your lungs, and as I start to cry I walk away from her body into the hallway. She told me she had AIDS the first night I met her, when I asked her out. It took me two dates to decide that I absolutely didn’t care. She was terrified that something would go wrong-she wouldn’t kiss me open mouthed, she absolutely wouldn’t have sex, said that she couldn’t risk an accident no matter what the odds with someone as special as me. I proposed to her at our one-month anniversary dinner. She didn’t cry, or smile, she just looked down at her plate and told me to take her home. The ride home was quiet as I was afraid to talk since I’d obviously offended her and she seemed too bothered to want to ever talk to me again. When we pulled up to her house and she just said, “Goodbye” and started to get out of the car I couldn’t bear to let it go on. “I love you more than I love my life,” I blurted out, and she stopped and sat back down and started softly crying. “Why would you want to marry me when we can never make love,” she begged through the tears. That’s when I told her that I had every intention of making love to her as much as she would let me, and absolutely no intention of wearing a condom. She didn’t believe me when I explained that I couldn’t bear to be apart from her, that I couldn’t dream of not being able to kiss her or make love to her with some mass-produced barrier between us, and that I was willing to die to be with her. I wanted to contract it, to be there with her, to share her pain, and to die with her. She didn’t believe any of it until after the wedding was actually over, and I got to kiss her proper for the first time. Neither of our families understood at all, and it didn’t matter to me in the least. Now I’m in the bathroom of the funeral home, throwing up and crying. I gather up a big wad of paper towels and soak them under the faucet and bring them back out. Everyone steps to the side as I move to the front of the room, still sobbing, smelling faintly of stomach acids, with a soaking wet wad of paper dripping from my hand. I lean over into the coffin, lift her head up, and slide my arm under it, cradling her in the crux of my elbow as I begin to wipe her face with the makeshift washcloth, starting at her forehead. The layers of foundation and coloring begin to come off and I can see a hint of her beautiful sickly white skin. It takes about a minute to get her completely clean and I’m somewhat surprised that she barely looks different dead than she did during this last year. Now everyone will be able to see how her cheekbones stick out in fine points, how you can see every tendon in her neck even when she’s completely at rest… you can see how long she’s been dying for in the bright blue veins around her eyes. This is how I remember her, this is the face I love, this is the disease that made my life worth living. I can smile a little now. I gingerly take my arm from underneath her and stand up, satisfied. A hand comes to rest on my shoulder. I turn around to find her father standing there, and I find myself very comforted by it, despite all my posturing, and I move to hug him, to share our mutual loss, but instead he punches me very neatly on the end of my nose, and I fall back onto the coffin, riding it all the way to the ground.
..................
She froze when she saw me there, bleeding. The jagged slashes that intersected and crisscrossed all down my arms, chest, stomach, and legs leaking tiny rivulets of blood that ran together and pooled and smeared and stained my shorts and the bed had halted her, and me as well, as I just held the steakknife there against my breast. She said, “you’re crazy,” and I stood up, and opened my eyes wide for her, so that she could see in, so that she could see the thousand nights they were shut tight as I sweated a thousand drugs out of my weak, exhausted body and how they were all preferable to any party, any job, any love, and finally, she was seeing me for what I really am. “No,” I said, “you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not crazy. I am Satan’s aborted son.” And she turned and ran-the joke was lost on her-so I laughed for both of us.