sublingua | |||||
The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
Dying
We were in a motel room in Las Vegas when Dave told me that one of his coworkers had committed suicide. I didn�t feel much about it; I had never met the guy. I asked Dave about his and his coworkers� reactions. They were shocked by it but not terribly surprised, if you know what I mean. The guy�s name was Stan. He was a bit famous around the office for his strange habits. He always wore flip-flops, for example, even in winter. Someone claimed to�ve once seen him pull some dead skin from his foot and eat it. He was suspected by his office mates of being the culprit in a series of nasty toilet-related incidents. He was married and had several children. They all lived in a two-story house. He claimed that neither he nor his wife had been upstairs in several years. Upstairs was where the childrens� rooms were. I think he took a fatal overdose, but of what, I have no idea. Like I said, I never met the guy, but I think of him from time to time. Like when I see people wearing flip-flops at inappropriate times or, more ocassionally, when I think about killing myself. I don�t mean that I think about killing myself ocassionally. In fact, I think about killing myself at least once a day or more. Whenever I have a still moment, I imagine slicing up my wrists or where I would go to take a fatal overdose of some drug and not have someone I loved find my body. I don�t think I�d leave a note. What could I possibly say to explain myself? What more would need to be said? I think of Stan sometimes when I try to think of how it is that I painted myself into this corner without anyone saying something like, �Hey, don�t paint yourself into a corner.� I mean, hasn�t anyone noticed? Didn�t anyone know that Stan had painted himself into a corner, too? I mean, it�s not a quick process. He lived with people. Just as I do. I live with David. We don�t talk. I think he loves me but he doesn�t like me too much, if you know what I mean. I tried to tell him once, a little more than a year ago, that I felt suicidal and he got very very angry at me and I could see in his anger a lot of fear and a lot of denial and a lot of wanting me to just shut the fuck up and not bother him with my problems. I�m not trying to say that he doesn�t care about me, because he does. But he�s just not interested in getting involved, if you know what I mean. He�s spent almost as many years living with my depression as I have. I know that can�t be an easy thing. When my mind gets quiet, I think about using my right hand to flay the skin from my left arm, my inner arm, from wrist to midway up to my elbow. I don�t know what I�d use to achieve this. A very sharp knife, I think. Intellectually, I think it would be painful, but in my fantasy, it is not. I know it would be bloody, but in my fantasy, there is little. I wouldn�t die right away. Fantasy and reality agree on that one thing. So I know that probably an overdose would be better than slicing myself open.
More lies:
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