and so he left?

I don't understand death or its meaning – in fact, I am quite convinced it has none (except, of course, that the dead person is gone). They put it down to a lack of sensitivity, or feeling, my incapability to feel the loss. But I do! I am at a loss. What does it mean, to be dead?

It is not hard to see what dying means: You end. The world unravels and your thoughts with it. Some terror maybe, a little pain – perhaps a little more. And then? Out.

Then all that is left is us, the living – what was it for? Maybe nothing. Consider: In truth, what changed but the fact that a person you once knew (or thought you knew) irrevocably extracted himself from your life? It is a break-up, plain and simple. (The circumstances changed; it just didn't work out; it is nobody's fault; we've drifted apart.)

Which brings me to my question, the one which has bothered me ever since the possibility presented itself in an eleven-year-old mind: What difference does it make for the living whether I just leave – emigrate to Cuba, maybe – or whether I die? You can't see, touch, feel me, and would it break your heart? You say, yes, but why then is there a strange comfort in knowing that somehow, somewhere I am alive? Perhaps, this is why we invented heaven. Perhaps, this is why we lie about death and speak not its name. 

Perhaps, this is why I act so unfazed – because we've all been left before, and what difference does it make? I miss. I just don't think it's unusual.

slip

I was in a bad place. I was in a bad place, I slipped down from the lower branches of a cherry tree and dug myself deeper into the white. Until I reached a place, under the petals, far removed from any light. And then I woke up.
A stone-solid 5 clung to my neck, the choking sensation easily explained by its weight; a 3 of steel had me around the waist, tying me to a signpost that screamed its message in bright pink letters: Restroom. Here we rest, here we wait.
The 3 wouldn't let me go and the 5 was dragging me down – until my elbows hit the white cold and it was stone-solid and innocent, and I relented, I got bent, I bent over and arched to accommodate to the grasp of the 3, so natural!, that pressed into my stomach. 

After, I rested, in the ladies room, a bitter taste in my mouth, my head heavy with a number, my body worn out and distorted by another. I washed my hands, not in innocence, but from the red stains on the white that would give me away, that would speak to the fact I gave in, I relented to the charms of red cherry sweetness that had precipitated my slip.

x days to go

What I will do if I ever get to grow old and know death is more than figuratively just around the corner: Save up money. Go shopping – groceries, grosseries, large pint of ice cream, lots of bread, butter and cheese – stuff my face and then take a gun and a good aim at my head.

Is this a weird, weird world where the least thing you want to do is not leave it with an empty stomach after having been surrounded by abundance all the while? Foregoing everything that would make existence worthwhile seems such a no-brainer – I make my life hell, cause if I wouldn't, others would take care of that.

biology

Just a few nights ago, I sat in a kebap shop having a conversation with some of my biologically (so I assume) male friends. It involved the proper preparation of cous-cous. The discussion became heated when someone raised the question of when and where to add parsley. This was serious business – straight talk, man's talk – for I sat on the side, feeling utterly bored. Needing a drink.

So I quipped, "Really, sometimes I think I am the only guy here." They looked at me, stunned. Then one of them said, amazed, "But, mouton, that's just not possible. You are a woman." My retort, "Oh, are you sure? How do you know?" – "Because you are one. There are clear biological differences." There we go.

Not wanting to let it slide so easily, I continued, "But biology is a big word. Are we talking genetical, chromosomal, anatomical differences? How do you decide who falls into which category." (The rest of the table were rolling their eyes – not again.) "Well, if it has a penis, it is a man, if it hasn't, it is a woman." – "And intersex people?" The discussion somehow returned to cous-cous. Apparently, it is better with parsley.