"Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth"

This was written a few months ago, around the time I started this blog. I posted it, but I worried that it was too controversial, too revealing. Now, I read it to remind myself where I was, what I was feeling and to wonder at how far I've come. More than that, it warns me not to go there again, not to let myself fall into that deep state of despair, not to believe everything I hear no matter how much I want to believe. This was a cry for help and there was no help forthcoming. Only I can help me, can save me. The human spirit is a miraculous thing, a marvel. What the mind and body can endure and triumph over, how the soul can find one tiny spark of light in the darkest pit, it is truly Awesome. Miles to go...

July 5 2007

"Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth"

Tonight is First Thursday at the Orlando Museum of Art. I've gone to special evenings at the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Met, but never here. I'd heard it was a big singles scene. Who told me that? K? S? V? Well I guess any of them and their respective husbands would know if it was a singles scene or not, would have noticed when they were here if there was hunting going on. Never been my thing, singles places, but I guess I'll have to find out about that aspect of being unmarried at some point in the future. In any case, tonight, the place reeks of couples and coupledom. Not coupling, that's a smell I enjoy. This was more....complacent.

Tonight's theme is illustration, artwork created for posters, publicity, books, newspapers, magazines. Diving into the surrealism of "Tsunami Moon", the genetic memory of "I'll Never See Another Butterfly", and that of a friend of a friend's work [www.briandemeter.com/], the work that spoke to me, that hit me, that hurts to look at, is "Hard to Cry with a Gun in Your Mouth."

Oh, I know that feeling. The cold steel, grey or blued. Slick and hard and smooth. Sliding between my anxious hungry lips, running my tongue around the sight and flicking it, sucking on the shaft. Cradling the grip in one hand, while the other strokes the chamber, making sure it does not slip from my eager mouth. Hoping for fulfillment, counting the seconds until it shoots into my throat, into my brain...

I cannot cry with a gun in my mouth. I will laugh with joy, but I will not cry.

There have been times when, speeding down a rain slicked road, the traffic poles were a beacon welcoming me, calling to me. If I swerved just a little bit... But the terror of not dying stops me. To risk, not death, but incapacitation? That I will not do. Trapped in a life I hate, a me I despise, is a sorry enough existence. To be trapped in a body, useless, my mind still functional? Who will pull the plug? Who?

If I cannot live, I do not want to be here.

I come from a long line of suicides. They would deny it, but they were subtle, as subtle as homicide can be given proper care and preparation. Driving a person to drink, to drugs, to self-doubt on a scale beyond imagining, making a person crazy enough to want to end life are all forms of homicide. If I have lost touch with this world, I might as well sever my links to it. This goes far beyond the anonymous ‘suicide by cop' because this is personal. Happenstance? Accident? Anything can be an accident. Brakes a tad squishy? Car push you off the shoulder of the road? Lump in the carpet at the top of the stairs? Allergic reaction to meds? Criminal intent? No, bad things just happen sometimes. But I say, there is no such thing as coincidence. There are no accidents. I haven't lost touch with reality, with sanity, it was taken from me. And I want it back.

I will not die. I have a mission, a calling, a charge to complete. I have orders to follow and I cannot leave this world until my work is done.

I will not follow in the footsteps of my parents or brother. I am not a gambler, spinning the chamber and cocking the hammer. I will love it, I will make love to it, but I am faking every second. I will pull away and let it discharge wherever it will but not into me. Oh no, not into me. No.

"And I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep."