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I am an old man. Lived more than a full life. Could've died at 45 and been a happy man. There are those days, yesterday, where it just doesn't seem to be worth the effort. As I have grown older, these days come more often. But time keeps on happening. And I endure. Often this "endurance" feels like I am tied down to a chair in the middle of the desert watching the birds of appetite circle overhead. Just a matter of time.
I often imagine a scene out there. I fall asleep. The vultures land. Approach. Start in on me. I still don't wake up. But am aware. Out go the eyes, tongue, nose, ears, face. The birds slowly reduce me down to the bone. Yet, I am still aware. A skull balanced atop a skeleton sitting in a chair in the desert. The birds have their fill. Fly off. I endure beyond the birds of appetite.
Point is: I keep waking up. Closing the mouth so I don't drown in the shower. Putting food in the hole to keep on going. Stopping before crossing the busy street. All these acts that imply I want to keep living. So those days where it doesn't seem worth it, where thoughts of death swarm around my brain like black bees, those days are a lie.
There is a distance between the thought and the act. Unless you are sitting there with a razor at your throat or a gun in your mouth, thinking you want to die, then you are inside of a lie. In the best and worst of ways, it is all drama. If it gets to the point where you are expressing it, then the truth is that you are not going to kill yourself. You are just going to sit around being pathetic and making it so everyone around you wants to kill you.
Of course, there is another suicide. You kill your self, not your physical body. You let the name and face die, fall away, until you are left with what?
Here is where I am. A skull balanced atop a skeleton sitting in a chair in the middle of the desert. My name means nothing. My history means nothing. I see this in my mind, a blue flame burning around the bones. And I want to see the skeleton get up and dance.