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Dark
I don’t always feel it (you). But I do know it’s (you’re) there.
Sometimes I just hear the “I love you, goodbye” it (you) said to me before it (you) stepped off the ledge.
Other times I hear A.’s (your mom’s) voice ringing out like an ambulance siren; a strange sequence of rhythmic outbursts ultimately transforming into the word “help” (“AHH!-AHH!-HAA!-HEL-!-HELP!), though all the sounds, formed or unformed, came out to meaning the same thing. That reminds me, has it (have you) ever heard a part of someone’s soul die?
One of the worst, I’ve found, is D.’s (your dad’s) voice simply asking, inquiring dearly, yet somehow calmly, “are you there son?” As he found it (you) hanging there.
…
Sometimes I don’t even think about it. Typically in the ocean. Underwater struggling for breath stops the thoughts of its (your) last gasps and chokes, ironically enough.
Winter swell, king tides.
As soon as I’m out of the water, I feel the darkness return. I hear myself say the words “dark” and “sad” in response to my therapist’s query of: “use two simple feeling-words to describe your mood”. I don’t know why I said “dark”, I guess at the most basic level it’s equivalent to “sad”. But dark transpires in conversation in a different way, it has a different sense than “sad”, even while having the same referent. When I say “dark”, I see the darkness of the night out into which I walked when on the phone with it (you), I see the darkness its (your) parents must’ve seen when they came out the sliding glass door and found it (you) in the tree.
The thoughts, as they dwell in my mind and my experience, manifest to me as darkness. When they come I see, in my mind’s eye, a swirling cloud of dark.
Or maybe it’s more that I just feel it. Maybe it feels the same as when a part of one’s soul dies.
I recall seeing a child psychiatrist during my parent’s divorce who had me draw a picture of my heart. I was to divide it into little sections devoted to the various things I loved. In the spot for “mom and dad”, the psychiatrist etched a little piece out in black. She said, “this is the place that will always be lost due to the divorce; but now, look at all the rest you have left!”
What if there isn’t a piece etched out as much as infected? What if it can spread to all the other sections?
…
Now I space out and can’t talk on occasion, not even when I think about it (you), just randomly. Often it seems like I’m just putting on a show, perhaps for it (you) if not for them (the They/das Man). But then, when I try to come out of it, I can’t. The words are there and I can think of things to say, reassurances to them that I’m alright, but it is as if to my brain social cues are now fulfilled by mere thoughts and not verbalized speech, in which case I never end up actually saying something, I just keep on thinking in silence.
Not that thoughts of it (you) are that toxic, in the way that traumatic events can be for some people. I wonder if my therapist thinks of the image of her husband when she found him after he shot himself in the same way I think of what it (you) must’ve looked like to its (your) parents as I heard them find it (you) hanging there; even though the two methods were so different, there must be some unity in the firsthand experience of this. What a strange thing to “find” something(/one) who was once someone(/thing). In any case, when I space out and go blank, I truly go blank, there is nothing. I don’t think of its (your) voice, nor the voices of its (your) parents—it’s probably just another coping mechanism.
…
I was struck by the use of the past tense in the obituary, a subtle way of reflecting the transition from extant to extinct; he was a great guitar player, but is no longer. Why can’t the “is” just remain? Perhaps that would help with coping. Its (your) brother said the family feels as though it (you) just went on a long trip, with an unspecified return date. Maybe this is a desperate attempt to keep the past still present. To withstand the notwithstanding.
…
Can one witness something over a phone call? I guess it (you) made me the only witness to its (your) moment of death, but thankfully/unfortunately I only played this role out in the auditory realm. I wonder if I would be more fucked up than I am if I had seen it (you). Sometimes I think it wouldn’t have mattered since to experience the moment of a soul’s extinguishing in any capacity is to do just that: experience it. That moment when, as I learned later, I heard the odd “thud” of the phone drop, proceeded by a creak, and finally: silence. And, thereafter, what a silence it was (you were).
I can tell when people have been told about it (you). That subtle double-take and look-over as one turns away. Sometimes it makes me want to put on an act. “Maybe they expect me to just look blank” is promptly followed by me doing just that: looking blankly. I don’t think I do it so intentionally as this makes it sound, however. I think it’s just the result of an overly analytic mind searching for the “proper” or “customary” reactions, since that would make it feel more in control.
Sometimes, I play out how others are told about it (you). I imagine my mother assuming a solemn tone and saying to our family friends before I arrive for dinner: “Just so you guys all know, M. is going through a lot right now, one of his childhood friends committed suicide…” to the customary sympathetic reaction of her audience (“oh I’m so sorry to hear that.”; “how’s he doing?” etc. etc.). I then think of how she would proceed to tell only a select few, perhaps just the other mother present at the dinner, how I had been on the phone with it (you) and heard its (your) last breaths, and how, through the (mis)fortune of the phone staying on the line after it (you) dropped it, I was able to hear the arrival of its (your) parents on the scene soon thereafter and their respective reactions.
…
Its (your) mother’s was far worse than its (your) father’s. Despite my initial disbelief, I knew what had happened when I heard her cries.
Its (your) father was in a state of complete zen. There was no time for reaction, only action. He coordinated the effort: she was to hold it (you) up while he got a knife to cut it (you) down.
Pretty soon its (your) mom must’ve noticed the phone on the ground and that I was still on the line. I guess its (your) phone screen still flashed with my name upon it, as its (your) mom quickly yelled “oh M.! He’s just here hanging! It’s terrible!” I stumbled through my best effort at comforting words. “It’s alright A., everything will be okay, everything will be OKAY, do you hear me??!”
But she couldn’t hold it (you) up, and it (you) kept sagging back down.
What can you say to a person in a moment such as this?
It was the closest I’ve come to experiencing true nothingness [das Nichts/potential for being]. Since we didn’t yet know if it was (you were) going to survive, nothingness had an immediacy I’d never encountered before.
Fortunately, its (your) dad was back quickly with a knife. I heard it (you) fall as they got it (you) down.
…
Such a strange, coincidental sequence of events must lead to follow up questions by the recipient of the information. I can imagine the “So wait, and you don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to, but how is it that…”, and the different intonations and levels of directness that different close-friends would use when receiving the news as my mother relayed it to them. As is usually the case with trauma, one replays it back in one’s head over and over, but I only do so in this indirect way, that is, I replay the events back as told by someone else. Maybe it helps disconnect me from the situation.
Disconnected in the way the EMT was as I heard him come upon its (your) parents administering an untrained but desperately instinctual form of CPR after they had finally gotten it (you) down. The authority in his voice, the rationale preserved within it despite the evident strain of witnessing an event that no matter how many times it has been witnessed could never be made routine. It (you) lying there, with its (your) parents frantically huddled around it (you) with the dog leash-made-noose not far off… is it possible to be desensitized to such a scene?
I wonder if the EMT’s that were present think of this night more so than any other night that they’re on shift. Is its (your) tragedy any more special than any other? As much as I want it to be, I know rationally this must not be the case. There must be instances of child abuse or innocent gunshot victims that are far more gruesome. At least it (you) wanted to die. Maybe that’s what they tell themselves to feel better. That sentiment doesn’t work for me, though.
When it (you) first called, I thought it was a cry for help, innocently enough. The words “My head’s in a noose right now”, didn’t register, and I asked it (you) to repeat them several times, through obviously strained breath, something which makes me cringe a little now. I guess it (you) had to make sure I knew it was (you were) going to die before it (you) said “I love you, goodbye”. When I finally could understand what it (you) had said, all I could muster was: “well, you called me didn’t you? So what’s up?”, fairly assured that what it (you) really wanted was to talk and this was just another one of its (your) breakdowns. Had I known what it (you) had tried to do with an extension cord the month before, perhaps I would’ve issued a more immediate plea for sanity (though Heisman might disagree with who/what was being more sane in this situation).
Oddly, I haven’t fallen much into that spiral of regret created by the question that is ever-present during the aftermath of a suicide: “what more could I have done?”. Knowing it (you) called me after speaking with an operator on a suicide hotline for an hour, someone trained to specifically handle situations like these, makes the last moments it (you) afforded me seem less critical, as it quite plainly would’ve been futile to have tried to change the course of events at that point.
…
Finally, its (your) dad realized the phone was still on. He had come to pick up its (your) belongings as the EMT’s prepped it (you) for transport. He was surprised when he realized I was still on the line after all this time (21 minutes to be exact, and no, it didn’t feel like eternity at the time, it’s only in retrospect that it seems like the temporal dimension ceased working and the memory exists in my consciousness as though it has been planted there by an alien species).
He almost laughed. Imagine that. Comedy exists in tragedy to the extent that one looks at the tragedy retrospectively. One can’t laugh directly after seeing their son dead hanging from a tree. Maybe there’s a laugh shared when friends are over a few weeks later showing their support, and its (your) dad makes a small joke about how the house has been a mess lately amidst an otherwise more sober conversation. That might garner a polite chuckle. But this doesn’t happen in the same moment that one has stared death in the face; and the death of one’s own face at that (it [you] and its [your] father looked quite alike).
I wonder if it (you) looked the same as R. I didn’t see him after he hung himself either, but I guess it was (you were) probably blue in the face, slightly puffed up, and maybe even had its (your) tongue slightly hanging out. I have a stock mental image of its (your) face that I go to whenever I think about this.
…
What bothers me more than all this typical shit (apologies as well for the omnipotent tones of the writing, I know these are typical when someone writes a diary entry after a trauma, they act like they’re the only one whose ever been traumatized before, as if being traumatized is sufficient to give one a god’s-eye view of everything [it sure does feel that way sometimes though—chalk it up to another coping mechanism]) is the larger existential question it (you) posed to me that night. For, if I admit that my time on the phone with it (you) was already determined, and I never, either in that moment or during the past 13 years that I’ve known it (you), had the capacity to change its (your) mind, then there is no ultimate justification for life.
I can’t regret not being able to change its (your) mind, but simultaneously I refuse to concede that the attempt was ultimately futile. I’m not prepared to accept the conclusion that deduction from this leads to. My best solution thus far in life has been Bill Hicks’ famous “It’s just a ride” monologue. In fact, I had just sent that to it (you) a few months prior. Knowing I also shared the same ‘existential sales pitch’ for life with R. just prior to his own hanging (which I know must’ve influenced its [yours]), and since that was also not effective, I strain to think of what more one could say.
There must be room for something other than mere fatalism here.
Aber ich weiß es nicht.
Mais je ne le sais pas.
es/man vs. du/Sie
ce/on vs. tu/vous
Changing languages won’t help.
Neither will the tides.
Dark
I don’t always feel it (you). But I do know it’s (you’re) there.
Sometimes I just hear the “I love you, goodbye” it (you) said to me before it (you) stepped off the ledge.
Other times I hear A.’s (your mom’s) voice ringing out like an ambulance siren; a strange sequence of rhythmic outbursts ultimately transforming into the word “help” (“AHH!-AHH!-HAA!-HEL-!-HELP!), though all the sounds, formed or unformed, came out to meaning the same thing. That reminds me, has it (have you) ever heard a part of someone’s soul die?
One of the worst, I’ve found, is D.’s (your dad’s) voice simply asking, inquiring dearly, yet somehow calmly, “are you there son?” As he found it (you) hanging there.
…
Sometimes I don’t even think about it. Typically in the ocean. Underwater struggling for breath stops the thoughts of its (your) last gasps and chokes, ironically enough.
Winter swell, king tides.
As soon as I’m out of the water, I feel the darkness return. I hear myself say the words “dark” and “sad” in response to my therapist’s query of: “use two simple feeling-words to describe your mood”. I don’t know why I said “dark”, I guess at the most basic level it’s equivalent to “sad”. But dark transpires in conversation in a different way, it has a different sense than “sad”, even while having the same referent. When I say “dark”, I see the darkness of the night out into which I walked when on the phone with it (you), I see the darkness its (your) parents must’ve seen when they came out the sliding glass door and found it (you) in the tree.
The thoughts, as they dwell in my mind and my experience, manifest to me as darkness. When they come I see, in my mind’s eye, a swirling cloud of dark.
Or maybe it’s more that I just feel it. Maybe it feels the same as when a part of one’s soul dies.
I recall seeing a child psychiatrist during my parent’s divorce who had me draw a picture of my heart. I was to divide it into little sections devoted to the various things I loved. In the spot for “mom and dad”, the psychiatrist etched a little piece out in black. She said, “this is the place that will always be lost due to the divorce; but now, look at all the rest you have left!”
What if there isn’t a piece etched out as much as infected? What if it can spread to all the other sections?
…
Now I space out and can’t talk on occasion, not even when I think about it (you), just randomly. Often it seems like I’m just putting on a show, perhaps for it (you) if not for them (the They/das Man). But then, when I try to come out of it, I can’t. The words are there and I can think of things to say, reassurances to them that I’m alright, but it is as if to my brain social cues are now fulfilled by mere thoughts and not verbalized speech, in which case I never end up actually saying something, I just keep on thinking in silence.
Not that thoughts of it (you) are that toxic, in the way that traumatic events can be for some people. I wonder if my therapist thinks of the image of her husband when she found him after he shot himself in the same way I think of what it (you) must’ve looked like to its (your) parents as I heard them find it (you) hanging there; even though the two methods were so different, there must be some unity in the firsthand experience of this. What a strange thing to “find” something(/one) who was once someone(/thing). In any case, when I space out and go blank, I truly go blank, there is nothing. I don’t think of its (your) voice, nor the voices of its (your) parents—it’s probably just another coping mechanism.
…
I was struck by the use of the past tense in the obituary, a subtle way of reflecting the transition from extant to extinct; he was a great guitar player, but is no longer. Why can’t the “is” just remain? Perhaps that would help with coping. Its (your) brother said the family feels as though it (you) just went on a long trip, with an unspecified return date. Maybe this is a desperate attempt to keep the past still present. To withstand the notwithstanding.
…
Can one witness something over a phone call? I guess it (you) made me the only witness to its (your) moment of death, but thankfully/unfortunately I only played this role out in the auditory realm. I wonder if I would be more fucked up than I am if I had seen it (you). Sometimes I think it wouldn’t have mattered since to experience the moment of a soul’s extinguishing in any capacity is to do just that: experience it. That moment when, as I learned later, I heard the odd “thud” of the phone drop, proceeded by a creak, and finally: silence. And, thereafter, what a silence it was (you were).
I can tell when people have been told about it (you). That subtle double-take and look-over as one turns away. Sometimes it makes me want to put on an act. “Maybe they expect me to just look blank” is promptly followed by me doing just that: looking blankly. I don’t think I do it so intentionally as this makes it sound, however. I think it’s just the result of an overly analytic mind searching for the “proper” or “customary” reactions, since that would make it feel more in control.
Sometimes, I play out how others are told about it (you). I imagine my mother assuming a solemn tone and saying to our family friends before I arrive for dinner: “Just so you guys all know, M. is going through a lot right now, one of his childhood friends committed suicide…” to the customary sympathetic reaction of her audience (“oh I’m so sorry to hear that.”; “how’s he doing?” etc. etc.). I then think of how she would proceed to tell only a select few, perhaps just the other mother present at the dinner, how I had been on the phone with it (you) and heard its (your) last breaths, and how, through the (mis)fortune of the phone staying on the line after it (you) dropped it, I was able to hear the arrival of its (your) parents on the scene soon thereafter and their respective reactions.
…
Its (your) mother’s was far worse than its (your) father’s. Despite my initial disbelief, I knew what had happened when I heard her cries.
Its (your) father was in a state of complete zen. There was no time for reaction, only action. He coordinated the effort: she was to hold it (you) up while he got a knife to cut it (you) down.
Pretty soon its (your) mom must’ve noticed the phone on the ground and that I was still on the line. I guess its (your) phone screen still flashed with my name upon it, as its (your) mom quickly yelled “oh M.! He’s just here hanging! It’s terrible!” I stumbled through my best effort at comforting words. “It’s alright A., everything will be okay, everything will be OKAY, do you hear me??!”
But she couldn’t hold it (you) up, and it (you) kept sagging back down.
What can you say to a person in a moment such as this?
It was the closest I’ve come to experiencing true nothingness [das Nichts/potential for being]. Since we didn’t yet know if it was (you were) going to survive, nothingness had an immediacy I’d never encountered before.
Fortunately, its (your) dad was back quickly with a knife. I heard it (you) fall as they got it (you) down.
…
Such a strange, coincidental sequence of events must lead to follow up questions by the recipient of the information. I can imagine the “So wait, and you don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to, but how is it that…”, and the different intonations and levels of directness that different close-friends would use when receiving the news as my mother relayed it to them. As is usually the case with trauma, one replays it back in one’s head over and over, but I only do so in this indirect way, that is, I replay the events back as told by someone else. Maybe it helps disconnect me from the situation.
Disconnected in the way the EMT was as I heard him come upon its (your) parents administering an untrained but desperately instinctual form of CPR after they had finally gotten it (you) down. The authority in his voice, the rationale preserved within it despite the evident strain of witnessing an event that no matter how many times it has been witnessed could never be made routine. It (you) lying there, with its (your) parents frantically huddled around it (you) with the dog leash-made-noose not far off… is it possible to be desensitized to such a scene?
I wonder if the EMT’s that were present think of this night more so than any other night that they’re on shift. Is its (your) tragedy any more special than any other? As much as I want it to be, I know rationally this must not be the case. There must be instances of child abuse or innocent gunshot victims that are far more gruesome. At least it (you) wanted to die. Maybe that’s what they tell themselves to feel better. That sentiment doesn’t work for me, though.
When it (you) first called, I thought it was a cry for help, innocently enough. The words “My head’s in a noose right now”, didn’t register, and I asked it (you) to repeat them several times, through obviously strained breath, something which makes me cringe a little now. I guess it (you) had to make sure I knew it was (you were) going to die before it (you) said “I love you, goodbye”. When I finally could understand what it (you) had said, all I could muster was: “well, you called me didn’t you? So what’s up?”, fairly assured that what it (you) really wanted was to talk and this was just another one of its (your) breakdowns. Had I known what it (you) had tried to do with an extension cord the month before, perhaps I would’ve issued a more immediate plea for sanity (though Heisman might disagree with who/what was being more sane in this situation).
Oddly, I haven’t fallen much into that spiral of regret created by the question that is ever-present during the aftermath of a suicide: “what more could I have done?”. Knowing it (you) called me after speaking with an operator on a suicide hotline for an hour, someone trained to specifically handle situations like these, makes the last moments it (you) afforded me seem less critical, as it quite plainly would’ve been futile to have tried to change the course of events at that point.
…
Finally, its (your) dad realized the phone was still on. He had come to pick up its (your) belongings as the EMT’s prepped it (you) for transport. He was surprised when he realized I was still on the line after all this time (21 minutes to be exact, and no, it didn’t feel like eternity at the time, it’s only in retrospect that it seems like the temporal dimension ceased working and the memory exists in my consciousness as though it has been planted there by an alien species).
He almost laughed. Imagine that. Comedy exists in tragedy to the extent that one looks at the tragedy retrospectively. One can’t laugh directly after seeing their son dead hanging from a tree. Maybe there’s a laugh shared when friends are over a few weeks later showing their support, and its (your) dad makes a small joke about how the house has been a mess lately amidst an otherwise more sober conversation. That might garner a polite chuckle. But this doesn’t happen in the same moment that one has stared death in the face; and the death of one’s own face at that (it [you] and its [your] father looked quite alike).
I wonder if it (you) looked the same as R. I didn’t see him after he hung himself either, but I guess it was (you were) probably blue in the face, slightly puffed up, and maybe even had its (your) tongue slightly hanging out. I have a stock mental image of its (your) face that I go to whenever I think about this.
…
What bothers me more than all this typical shit (apologies as well for the omnipotent tones of the writing, I know these are typical when someone writes a diary entry after a trauma, they act like they’re the only one whose ever been traumatized before, as if being traumatized is sufficient to give one a god’s-eye view of everything [it sure does feel that way sometimes though—chalk it up to another coping mechanism]) is the larger existential question it (you) posed to me that night. For, if I admit that my time on the phone with it (you) was already determined, and I never, either in that moment or during the past 13 years that I’ve known it (you), had the capacity to change its (your) mind, then there is no ultimate justification for life.
I can’t regret not being able to change its (your) mind, but simultaneously I refuse to concede that the attempt was ultimately futile. I’m not prepared to accept the conclusion that deduction from this leads to. My best solution thus far in life has been Bill Hicks’ famous “It’s just a ride” monologue. In fact, I had just sent that to it (you) a few months prior. Knowing I also shared the same ‘existential sales pitch’ for life with R. just prior to his own hanging (which I know must’ve influenced its [yours]), and since that was also not effective, I strain to think of what more one could say.
There must be room for something other than mere fatalism here.
Aber ich weiß es nicht.
Mais je ne le sais pas.
es/man vs. du/Sie
ce/on vs. tu/vous
Changing languages won’t help.
Neither will the tides.
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