Every Monday morning,
My teacher repeats the same command.
"Look alive" she says,
Even though, I already feel dead.
Along with all the other days of the week too.
And add to that list,
The past few weeks,
And since you've been gone,
Go ahead and add the past year too.

First, if I am comatose for a while pre-death, don't let them call me a fighter.
I'm probably not fighting it.
It's probably the first time I've been able to relax in a decade.

Second, keep my death off the internet.
Tell my friends of my demise with handwritten notes delivered by white-gloved butlers with somber expressions.
Tell my enemies by sitting on their chests and poking them in the forehead repeatedly until they guess how it happened. It shouldn't take long.

Third, my friends from high school will immediately try to design stickers for their car windows with my name on them and a graphic of dance shoes or track shoes or my college mascot.
You are not to allow this.
A sticker denoting the death of a loved one will not keep fellow motorists from noticing that my friends from high school **** at driving.

Not permitted at the funeral:
Gerber daisies
poetry
blue jeans
any ex-boyfriend I refer to by something other than their name (i.e. "the fat hipster I used to hang out with.")

Encouraged at the funeral:
Hugs - everyone must hug
lots of appropriately sad, yet tasteful songs sung by my musically-minded loved ones (may I suggest "In Light of Time" by Phillip E. Silvey?)
And make sure they bury me in the blue dress.

Last, for every story they tell about me where I was kind or selfless or funny or caring,
make sure someone also tells the story where I got too drunk at a frat house and made out with a kid from upstate New York and then spent four hours passed out and/or puking on the floor of the communal bathroom in Ashley's building,
or the one where I punched Savannah in third grade,
or the one where I rolled a car for no particular reason.

Remember me as I was.

I cannot suppress the thought any longer.
That maybe, just maybe,
It is my own fault that
He has changed so.

Long gone is the boy
With the sweet blue eyes
With the sunflower yellow centers

Who would do anything
Anything
To spend a moment staring into mine.

Long gone is the boy
Who could transform from
Fits of anger, questioning
"Why do you let them treat you that way?"

To fits of tears
"The soap here smells like you and I miss you."
In an instant.

His carefully planned words resonating in my mind,
Then and now.

I do not know where this boy has gone.
Perhaps he was lost in the chaos of last July
When the sun had set
And our dismal future was left unsettled.

And he could not use his ever powerful words,
To convince me to stay.

Because all that remains of him
Is smoke and mirrors.
But mostly just smoke.
And a lot of lies.

And now he will do anything
Anything
To avoid my cold grey eyes.

We've both been left fighting for dominance,
Over who has it worse now.
Neither acknowledging the reality
That we have broken each other.

With lips like yours
I'm going to need emergency
Resuscitation!!!!

"You are such a ******* child."

Nice try, my dear, but you can do better.
See, darling, those words mean nothing.
I am a child. If you asked, I'd tell you.

Can't you do better than that?

Don't you want to crawl under my skin,
set up camp in my head, tent stakes pounded into my brain,
keep me awake at night with a gnaw in my gut?

Try this, instead, love --

"You are a manipulative attention ***** who skips around wielding her emotions like an assault rifle without giving a thought to how that affects anyone around you. You've never had to work for anything, never once in your life, and the minute you do have to try at anything, you will fail. You'll spend the rest of your life looking for someone to take care of you, but you'll never actually let them and you will be alone."*

Isn't that better?

Is the answer
To this simple question
No?


© 3/12/13

It's crazy how a love so pure and so sweet
can change in a split second to so dark and deep.

Thoughts unsaid.
Emotions not felt.