An author’s note
If you’ve been reading along, I’m tapping into themes of death and revival once more. Warnings for implications of suicidal ideation + recovery. If this resonates — solidarity, beauty. You got this. Stay ten toes down.
bbbbbzzzzzchhhh…Transmission. Transmutation. Transcendance…..bbbbtzzzzz
How many more lives am I allowed to live if I feel like I’m running out of time?
How many more desperate cries am I meant to cry?
How many more doctors talking over my head am I meant to endure for the sake of being alive?
Is this life as it’s meant to be experienced?
Can’t I just start over? Erase me and begin from the top in my next life?
You can’t.
Because you’re more immortal than you thought, coward.
You’ve got last wills and testaments hidden beneath rocks… lying unused by the sheer power of your mother’s prayers. How many times have you memorized the sound of your inner voice calling to the void? How many times have you bitten down until you bleed when you wanted to plead, “Remember me like this, not like what I’ll become” in the comfortable silences shared with the loves of your life? How many times have you known you were leaving? You recognized the disappearance for what it was, and this time, you did not fight it. You thanked what it gave you and prepared for someone else to take it from here.
You looked around rooms and places you once begged to be in and realized you’d never fit all of you into the shallow sense of self required to sustain your mortal flesh.
You thought the solution was to perish.
You were prepared to haunt the places you once loved for an eternity. Die young, leave a pretty corpse. You were prepared to live a life of slow, public rot.
Then, there’s the right donut at the right time.
Or the right smile on the right child.
Your name yelled with affection.
A stranger willing to give you directions.
The cheers of victory from city streets that have a heartbeat.
The giggle of a man who just received flowers.
The smell of a tree that towers over you.
The way the morning mist tastes in the middle of a forest.
The way your friends looked as you sweat on the dance floor in the name of true love.
It’s the screeching of Evanescence at karaoke with the loves of your life.
It’s the feeling of once being a lonely teenager, singing to cope, and realizing that these songs take on new meaning when you’re happy.
It’s the way the world looks from atop a temple and from the plush carpet of healthy grass.
It’s the breath at the end of a laugh that reminds you, “Ah, this is what it means to be alive.”
The call of the grave may come, but here you are,
Your destiny lies elsewhere, Yomigaeri. Maneater. Flaming sword. Beautiful monster.
As many as it takes.
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