CW: None.
when i die i like
to think about the life
i lived. i like to be
alive again every time
i die i like to stay there
til morning. every time
i die i make a fuss, they always
tell me not to make a fuss
but i do. i can’t help it, i spent
so long not dying before
you think i mean a metaphor.
you think i mean i mean sex
but i do not mean
sex, i mean dying. i mean that
other thing we do at night, and
no i don’t mean sleep. or dreaming
or any other reasonable small and
eminently repeatable thing
i know so many who have died.
who have taken death into themselves
and waited for it to grow.
and when i die, i leave them all behind
and go somewhere that no one
else can go.
This piece came to me very quickly, but a lot went into it: The humor and history of death as a metaphor for sex; the quotidian almost-death that happens when we go to sleep every night; the inexplicable impulse toward self-destruction that makes us feel alive, for which there is undoubtedly a German word. I wanted to trace the line between these and see what strange new thing emerged.
