On death
My dead father, long-time dead, apparently sat by my cradle watching me all night the night he died. Ever the immature child, I still like to wonder if he watches me masturbate or fuck guys or take shits or paint my nails. Sometimes it even makes orgasms more elusive.
My boyfriend, my dead boyfriend and our hilariously tragic drama. I dream of your warm, rosy lips flush against my skin, but I see your blank, grey face overwhelmed by your gaudy, overstuffed coffin. Speaking of which, you never did come for me. Bastard. At the very least, we should have started fucking sooner and you should have pulled the trigger later.
The people I have wronged are all suddenly waiting in the darkness to exact their revenge. I dredge up my excuses and justifications, my logical reasoning, but none of it helps assuage my guilt, not tonight - it’s too much and they’re hungry for a feast tonight because no one likes going to bed on an empty stomach.
I start to see the swirls and movement in the dark space between me and the walls, me and the wardrobe, me and the edges of the bed. I toss and sweat. I become confused - the dead, the living, the ghosts, the monsters - they’re all the same make-believe and fact and out of focus stories that I tell. I want to cry or scream, emit a primitive sound to indicate that I’m alive, that I’m here.
Can he see me typing now? Is he more dirt than dust? It really doesn’t matter, does it? I’ve got real concerns when the sun rises and instead of partaking of the restful period, I’m pissing time away psyching myself out with pointless questioning thoughts and this treacherous body plays along. Quickening heart, sweating palms, drying mouth and heightening senses, making everything an affront: the hum of the fan, the rumble of motorbikes, the passing planes, swirling darkness, the muffled voices - they all want something from me and I’m just too tired. I want to sleep for a thousand years and wake up just in time to sleep again.
I wish whatever’s going to get me would stop fucking around and come and topple me now. Give me my cancer battle, my rapist-murderer, my horrible accident or whatever unglamorous downfall you have in store for me, life - even a wisp of my own hair brushing against my shoulder is freaking me the fuck out tonight.
1 August 2008 at 4:40 pm
god. i love this. love.
1 August 2008 at 5:05 pm
You are a fabulous writer!
1 August 2008 at 6:38 pm
There is one word I think you need to change in this (without getting nit-picky) and that’s the ‘he’ in the first two sentences paragraph #4. I would suggest made it ‘they’. It’s unclear who the ‘he’ is; ‘they’ would be safer.
Your opening paragraph struck a real chord since the book I’m working on just now is about a woman clearing out her dead father’s flat - alone.
If it was me though, I’d change the opening of paragraph #3 to begin something like: ‘The people I have wronged (some/many/all of which who are dead) etc. to tie in with the opening two.
Other than that, it’s quite well structured.
2 August 2008 at 12:24 am
I fucking love this post.
fucking love it.
and there are no rules. no rules. ever.
2 August 2008 at 1:35 am
I must admit that I found the first paragraph too overpowering. I’m certain you intended it that way; however, this is the first time I’ve thought that you’ve really crossed that imaginary line into the truly uncomfortable zone. For me, it took away from the brilliance of the whole piece. As a rule of thumb, never mix dead father with masturbate, fuck guys and shit. You are one sick fuck! Then again, I’m secretly hoping for a slow and painful death, so maybe I’m the sadistic sick fuck. That said, there are no rules.
2 August 2008 at 9:51 am
Oh! The elusive orgasm when masturbating. For me it’s the fear that the dog will wander in while I’m doing it. Not the dead father, but I think it’s the same thing.
I too love this post.
2 August 2008 at 10:14 am
Your Wandering Mind: I don’t think you’ve been reading for long because I’ve written lots of things far more uncomfortable than this. I am not entirely sure who you’re hoping a slow and painful death for, but if reading my writing is inducing such feelings, you should reconsider whether it’s worth doing.
I don’t set out expressly to shock or disgust, but I certainly intend to write the unexpected. Even the things I outright make up are true (because they come from me) and I won’t apologise for that or anything I write. There’s no point to this exercise otherwise.
Everyone else: Thanks for your comments. I want to load you all up on huge spoons and lick you like strawberry banana sherbet.
2 August 2008 at 1:43 pm
The reason I started reading this site, and have kept reading for just over thirteen months, is precisely because of writing like this. Writing that takes risks when so much else that one can read on the net is safe and pedestrian and, moreover, where the end result is often so beautifully and imaginatively phrased. Like the piece above.
I suspect that’s the reason behind why many of your readers are here, and why we all stick around for the next instalment.
I agree that you don’t set out to shock. Not deliberately. The shock of the writing here lies in the fact that it sticks out like a sore thumb in a sea of mundanity.
(And that metaphor just deserted me, evidently. Because you don’t often get sore thumbs in the middle of the sea. Erm, not unless you’re clinging to the life-raft too tightly. Or something. Help, I’m flailing …)
2 August 2008 at 8:08 pm
You are disgusting! Disgusting, do you hear me?
Strawberry AND banana together - have you no decency, woman?
2 August 2008 at 11:22 pm
Strawberry and lemon is better. And I agree with Mr. Witness.
And I’ve been there, too.
3 August 2008 at 1:14 pm
AUW is totally right .. i don’t read you to feel safe … i read you because you’re real and dangerous, because sometimes i’d like to be that too; i read you so you can rough me up, bruise me beautifully .. and you know what? Paras 1 & 2 (especially the latter) are perfect! Thank you …
3 August 2008 at 3:51 pm
Cheers all, you didn’t have to say any of that, but I’m giddy and not at all blushing that you did.
Jack, you’re right. That was truly disgusting. It shouldn’t be sherbet, it should be proper ice cream. You, Z, Unreliable and Shell (Hi, Shell!) being the whipped cream, chocolate syrup and cherries on top respectively.
10 August 2008 at 2:35 am
Ooooooh. This is incredible in so many ways.
12 August 2008 at 9:56 am
Wow. Phew. And such exclamations. I find pieces like this quite uncomfortable reading, but also utterly compulsive. I really liked the sensory stuff in the second to last paragraph and the final call to death. Something surely we have all felt at some point.