i will write whatsoever i goddamnwell please

1/24/07

In, from the front porch, and the cold follows me through the door. I am thinking: somewhere, in the sky, there is a new moon floating by that I can’t see. The shadow of my soul, going by; your face, turned away from me. Hot chocolate is not as good as coffee with a cigarette. Through them both I can taste my dinner; mostly the red wine marinade I made. It sticks, distinct, lingering on my palate. Like a crown of blood around my tongue. You know those stories of people that die of heartbreak? That will never be me. I think of you, when I think of the moon – your face is like it, beyond touching. Whatever beautiful light it casts down at me, though I might chase it through its own thrown shadows, I won’t catch it. It tingles on my skin, like aloe on a sunburn. I want to eat it, the peppermint moon, but…that is absurd. You’ve heard the stories of those people…the elderly, the aged, living full, married, childed lives of umbilical devotion to each other with silver anniversaries to look forward to. And then, one of them dies, and the other doesn’t know how to live or what else to do but to follow. That will not be me. I will have driven all the miles around the moon and back, listened to as much music as one could stack, know every distant inch between here and the moon before that is me.
When I die, it won’t be of old age and because of emphysema. Whatever chance I will leave behind a well worn corpse, it will be because of some great grace, but God knows I’ve lead a less than graceful life. When I die, it will not be because her spirit beckons me, no. that passes me every night. I am well acquainted with her leaving, I know her only by her going. I will not die because of some spirit I’ve lost. It will be because of a spirit I’ve finally found. When you die, you find yourself truly, and once you’ve found yourself, you are truly ready to die. It happens like that. You may not get the chance to say goodbye. It happens in pre-mortem comas, or in the eternity it takes for one to breathe his last, the exhale into infinity. You do not get a chance to bear the secret out into the fleshly life; it is not a secret the fleshly life can discover. When I go, I will have struck the gold of my soul, finally. A life’s work…completed in death. By dying. The loadbearing cornerstone of life. I will give my life to complete my life. I will die because of the soul I’ve found. I will follow because its truth beckons me. I think: she will continue marching black across the night shining light on far shores, and I cannot follow her with my death. I’ve only got one death to die. The task of my life awaits me, here, on this veined, life-glazed ground. To her I cannot cleave and die. Perhaps I do not love her enough for that. I do love her some; I love her still. But to die, it will not be to follow her leaving; it will be to finally meet my becoming.