There’s something about death that intrigues you, whether it’s due to its cold pallor in the dead of night or ability to resurface suppressed emotions in those which death affects. Like the ascension from water to breathe once more, you are enlightened to the thoughts and intuitions of those around you with death looming in the distance. Death is ever-present and omniscient, and while grasping your hand, it brings to light your authentic self — all while maintaining staunch sobriety in the wake of tragedy.
You don’t quite know when your obsession with death began, but you can remember being attracted to its allure from a formative age. You had not yet experienced death in all of its somber glory, but nevertheless, there was something mysterious about the illumination of nevermore which caught your attention. Perhaps it was your hidden desire to perish into the earth, or perhaps it was the uncertainty of where you traveled upon death, but in spite of these fleeting thoughts, all you have known with distinguished conviction is that you wanted to become as close to death as you possibly could.
To what extent would you travel in order to be acquainted with death’s lips? You simply don’t know, and that is what scares you the most. You realized from a young age that your teetering obsession with the entity is abnormal at best, and institutionalizing at worst, which is the reason why you never informed even your closest friends or partners about your antiquated addiction. In their eyes, you’re simply a stereotypical millennial with a fascination with true crime documentaries, serial killers, and thriller novels. If only they knew the depths of your intrigue.
You can trace your captivation with death as far back as 11 years old. Before you even really knew what death encompassed, you would write stories about individuals collapsing and dying in their lovers’ arms. You would explore the intricacies of emotion triggered from the effects of death, from absolute heartbreak to anger and guilt to, in some rare cases, relief. It could be said that you understood the stages of death more in those moments than most people did at the conclusion of their own lives; it was an innate understanding, something for which you had a natural affinity. You had spent years of your life in fear of death before you discovered that death was nothing to be feared — it was to be sympathized with.
Dying is as organic in this life as sleeping or breathing. After all, it’s why some romantic poets refer to the act as sleep, especially post-coitus sleep, as la petite mort — “the little death.” While you recognize that death is not something that should be romanticized, you also cannot help but wonder why such a stigma exists around death, considering how commonplace it is. Society speaks about death in hushed tones, with drawn blinds and black attire, and suppresses any thought that escalates death to a pedestal degree. Why shouldn’t we celebrate death? Death is, after all, the ultimate ascension from this mortal plane, the only exit to what is normally a dread-filled existence. Sometimes you feel jealous that death has not yet come knocking at your door.
While sipping coffee one morning, you come upon the realization that society is in fear of death because of its unforgiving nature to snatch loved ones at unexpected moments and bury them in the abyss. From that point onward, death is as enigmatic as the meaning of life itself — wrought with senselessness and anarchy, with no regard for an individual’s significance or reputation. Death pays no mind to accolades or honors, nor does it care about how much we have struggled already. Death is indiscriminate.
You set your coffee down on the desk and place your finger upon your brow in contemplation. The word “indiscriminate,” defined as an action performed without careful judgment or at random, not only exemplifies death, but also the very nature of your being. Spontaneous, fleeting, ethereal, and sometimes haphazard. These qualities are often the reason why like-minded individuals are attracted to you like a moth to a flame, but despite your aptitude for enticing what are often hurricanes of people, you prefer solitude. As such, there’s a feasible chance that your fascination with death is a byproduct of your character. You have felt more intimate connections with the essence of death than you have with other people. Simply said, you and death are one.
Perhaps it’s the reason why all of your relationships have failed. In spite of your attraction to solitude, you’ve always craved physical affection — the intimacy that erupts between two people which is akin to spiritual enlightenment, where the meshing of your personalities resembles not two individual people, but one complete entity, transcendental and illuminating. The allure of death, however, persevered, and in lieu of time spent with your partners, you’ve instead cradled your obsession with two open arms. And although you were dependent on the corporeal aspects of a partnership, you experienced a detachment from your partners themselves. Upon your departure, which was normally one-sided, you moved on without a passing glance, unaffected and consumed by the prospective ideas which plagued your mind.
Your relationship with your family was not much different. Having lived a solitary life as a youth, you ceased contact with your parents by the time you were 16, having distanced yourself long prior to your ultimate exodus in light of their abusive tendencies. They undoubtedly infringed upon your juvenile development with physical altercations and verbal attacks, suppressing your innocence and forcing you to conjure alternatives in an attempt to escape. Initially, those thoughts were of running for your life and starting anew, but as time progressed, your contemplations turned dark — arson, murder, disposal. Of course, you still had a hint of morality at that time; as such, you ultimately decided to walk away, opening a fresh chapter of your virtual novel and soaking your quill in ink, willing and desperate.
Sprawled about amid your chaotic dance with death exists another passion — literature. You have been writing creative non-fiction and fictional works for as long as your amnesia allows you to remember, and expectedly, the Grim Reaper is among the subjects that you write about the most. Although you lack proper credentials or any wisp of awards, you exude confidence in your work, and rightfully so — your whimsical weaving of words replicates those of such greats as Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. In some ways, you’ve personified the image of a starving artist, your writing littered with splashes of murky gloom, transcendent philosophy, the underground realm of human psychology, and mental illness. You put on the guise of fiction, but in reality, your work is merely a reflection of your innermost compulsions and racing thoughts, accelerating through your nerves until your fingertips bleed.
There’s something about death that intrigues you, and you’re unaware of how closely its grasp is around your wrists. Nevertheless, you are nursing your addictions and blinded by your infatuation. You have become so intimate with death that you overlook its warning signs, your rose-tinted glasses tinged with specks of blood that you shrug off as merely smudges on the lens. And as death’s sinewy body coils around you, indiscernible and discreet, you have finished writing another autobiographical sketch disguised as fantasy. Your floral prose seeps into the crackled pages of your moleskin notebook, staining prior writing, rendering them indistinguishable. However, you pay no mind — this is your best work, this is what will crumble societal standards into ash, this is what the hybrid of suffering and insight looks like. This… this will cultivate understanding and propel others to understand death in all of its eminence.
While you are submerged in vanity, you don’t take notice of death wrapping its fingers around your torso. You don’t feel its claws gently caressing your neck. Your attachment has plunged into the most forbidden caverns to where such poison upon your lips is anesthesia. Your quill disintegrates into soot between your fingers and spills onto the floor beneath you. Notwithstanding the destruction of your art, you remain composed, for death is the ultimate destroyer, the extinguisher of innovation. If you had no option but to set your art aflame, you would at least die with the solace that death itself had ordered the command.
It can be said that it was destiny which brought you and death together. Akin to such moving figures as Kurt Cobain, Robin Williams, and Chris Cornell, it has been your fate to acquaint with death in a premature fashion. You have viewed your life as a fleeting comet of light, fiery and ethereal, whose ultimate demise is met with wonderment and awe. As you come upon the realization that death is creeping behind you, its shadow stalking you in the wake of your existence, you open your heart to its scythe with two outstretched arms. The scythe plunges inside of you, unforgiving and unexpectedly cold. There is no smile upon death’s face, nor any allusion of romance or greeting. Death is indiscriminate.
You don’t quite know when your obsession with death began, but in that moment of your dissociation from your corporeal form, death became eternal. And much like the integration of two personalities in partnership, you and death morphed into one distinguished being, one beam of light amid the beckoning darkness, one body and one soul. You have personified death all along, and although death’s demeanor calls upon destruction and detachment, you nevertheless feel privileged to be touched by death’s grace. Death is your ultimate destiny; a fortune before which you have bowed. In the end, you kissed the devil at the crossroads and were enveloped by his wickedness. You were complete.
To what extent would you travel in order to be acquainted with death’s lips? You would travel to the fathomless depths of the cosmos, searching desperately. And as the noose hangs limp from the scaffolds, your eyes flutter closed. You have returned home.
