Sidelong Glance

I am perverse, though my crimes may not be marked by sensuality, greed, or violence, but consciousness. The unthinkable thing I will do to another is mention my own death. Many people are now experiencing things I learned at a young age. Fear, uncertainty, isolation, reevaluating their own perception. I learned to be afraid to leave my home when I was a child. One of the first things I learned, before memory, was how to survive without touch. I have known for a long time that life is not something primarily defined by pleasure. Or rather, that pleasure isn’t defined only by enjoying oneself in directly happy things. I learned the pleasure of isolation, longing, distress, privation, grief, I learned to find beauty in the smallest of moments surrounded by a hostile past and future. Trauma is a gift. I have learned that speaking in this way is monstrous, unacceptable. Many people are participating in an unfolding traumatic event. Some are learning things about themselves they have never known, experiencing things they have never experienced. Some are experiencing feelings that are familiar. There is plenty of dread everywhere. This is a gift. I am perverse because I will tell anyone I speak to that I know I am, by many accounts, an essentially expendable human being, I am someone who could easily fill up fatality statistics. I say this with some fear, certainly, but also with some excitement, it is something interesting to me. I am interested in my life, and I am interested in my death. It is perverse to approach your own death or suffering in your life with anything other than fear, avoidance. Certainly I have fear, certainly there are times I distract myself from these thoughts. But I can revel in them, as well. All things in moderation, though sometimes I am nunnishly celibate, sometimes drunk on my own mind. During my experiences with illness and surgeries, I enjoyed many perverse lines of thought. I haven’t encountered anyone with whom I could share these thoughts with any hope of being understood. It is a private, dreadful delight. Disgust and desire and despair are incestuous sisters in my heart. Plague was always my favorite horseman. I used to fantasize about dying of bubonic plague as a little girl. Who can I speak to of these things without causing them to recoil? I have been asking that my whole life, and I will continue asking it.

What response am I to give to those who would like for me to not exist? Is the correct response to take my life if those who would like me to die are more forceful in this desire than those who would like me to live?