I fought it for so long. I feel so guilty and selfish like a fucking bastard. But there they are. The fucking smack drips and the hollow eyes meaning the person I fell in love with is not in that car with me.
I didn’t make the decision far away in a safe shelter where I knew that harm would never come near me. I didn’t phone a friend and tell them to tell her that we should see other people. I didn’t fade away and avoid it all, like I want to now that I know. I held on to the dream and prayers for hope that I needed to believe in. I went back to her with the same love and devotion I’ve had since that miraculous sunset in Oregon and I finally saw what the score was. We were apart too long and I guess we are going to stay that way.
Before the wreck we were falling apart. Held together through commitment and friendship and a common need, but we were nothing but the robots we tried not to become. Not the worker bees that we feared but lecherous vampires that prowl upon them. It was all so glamorous and shitty and not at all who I am anymore. I will fight no more forever. I am born again, completely new, and there is a lot of pain and loneliness and guilt ahead. Some days all I have is a reminder that I’m not the poor bastard they dragged out of the cell next to me. Some days all I have is the memory of God’s mischievous silent smile as he touched my mind. Every day I have is a gift, thanks to that poor fuck and God’s intervention.
That was the day I killed myself.
That’s why on a cold lonely evening in jail I took that belt from around my waist and methodically attached it to the empty bunk in the holding cell. That’s why I gave my final pleas and told the world go about its business without me. That was the day my old life died and that’s why I committed suicide. That was the day I started this painful process of re-crawling out of the womb and into the harsh lights and sounds of what we call reality.
And you know what? I am very glad that I am here to talk about it. All the rehab and psychotherapy in the world can’t make things right until they are supposed to be. The patience and understanding and knowledge didn’t come from me. I feel more secure knowing that I had help. I feel even better knowing that I am here when I didn’t want help even though I’m the only one who made it difficult to get life’s lessons through this thick head of mine. True happiness is a drop of morning dew dripping off the leave of a giant redwood as it basks in the rising sun. The world is perfection and we are only graffiti.
.gradually we just drifted apart, me on the strict path that a moral society supposedly needs to set as its standards and her on her own longer path to acceptance and recovery. After the visits tapered off and dried up we became better together as friends. As lovers we are poison to each other, but to know that one of the greatest minds and loves that I will ever have is still around makes it ok that we’re friends nonetheless.
“I’ll call you” and “We’ll have lunch” invariably gets delayed and protracted over days, then weeks, months and now years. Sure I’ve run into her every once in a while and we still have that magic spark of electricity when we speak and touch, but it isn’t an all consuming torch or flame anymore. We both know the situation and with more than a little regret we remain close friends. Ex-lovers with a large dancing child and a big elephant in the room, bonding them forever.
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All Rights Reserved © 2004 by Samuel Paul
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Paul, Samuel E., 1963-
Why I Committed Suicide or ‘Le Petit Mort’: a sexual double entendre’ that extends from the belief that whenever a man ejaculates and gives himself fully over to a woman he must die a little. When that happens it isn’t so much a tribute as it is a chronicle.
Samuel E. Paul
ISBN: 0-595-32695-1
ISBN: 978-0-5957-7500-2 (ebk)