Work Text:
Well.
It happened.
Just like she said she would, someday, some years ago.
In an almost anxious way, I didn't want to believe there were seriousness in those words.
Just like she said I would, I was the first receiving her suicide letter.
"Lettera Per Zero" written blatantly on the envelope with a glittery gel pen (for fuck's sake).
The last time my name would be written in her handwriting.
It was handed to me by an unaware mailman, yesterday...
I just got to think a bit harder about her death yesterday.
And maybe.. maybe I didn't get the letter yesterday, but some days ago..
Or weeks..
Months..
Not that I'm keeping track.
But yesterday, I know I thought of her.
I thought about whether she really wanted to do it, if she was afraid to go alone.
I thought about death, I pondered if it felt like a really deep sleep.
I thought about holding her hand in her final moments of consciousness, even though I never got to know how she did it.
I don't even know if she had a hand to hold anymore.
But if she did, I'd imagine it was cold and yellow..
Or maybe warm, way too warm.
Boiling.
And I realize now that even if I got to see her, that wouldn't be anything more than a corpse.
I'd feel disgusted by my beautiful Alice.
I'd imagine that if you got really close..
Close enough to hear the quiet inside.
You could sense a faint leathery smell, acrid and bitter.
Like when you switch sides of your cigarette because you're in a rush, and end up tasting the filter.
The tobacco taste stained on your tongue.
Even if you tried to spit it out, it would stay.
Think about that distinctive smell of your grandparents house, which you'd later come to find out was humidity mixed with dust, deeply imbedded within the wooden furniture.
In her skin, not a single goosebump.
Her bruises and cuts drained out of blood.
Leaving them just moist pure gray and white as paper at the borders.
Her body is probably buried now.
And the last I saw of it was in that day when I drove to her apartment at 2 in the morning.
She'd call me sobbing regularly.
We ate ice cream while we talked about her shitty boyfriend.
I don't think she ever got to tell her family that she wants to be cremated.
Or wanted..
Whatever.
Needless to say that that letter was an endless apology..
I recall reading the first words excitedly, wondering what it could say.
What are you apologizing for?
You were so fond of everyone's wishes on top of your own.
I always told you to do what you wanted, for once.
And I know now... the thing you wanted more than anything in the world.
More than you wanted me.
-Was to be dead.
And you got it, I'll give you that.
..
Haven't been going to work for a while..
Nobody has messaged me about it.
They know what happened, and they know why I haven't been going.
So.. there's nothing much to say to it.
It's weird to think about how your voice only exists in my head now, because I used to hear it every day.
And it will once be forgotten too.
Just like I forgot the way your fingers danced on the piano, so sure of what to do, while I looked in awe of what seemed like magic being made.
And there's nothing I can do about it, because there will be no way to refresh my memory.
And I'll remember that I used to know a voice..
A voice I won't recall, so I'll know nothing at all.
I'll call back, surely, how strongly it reeked of alcohol from your cheap perfume, when I'd slam my nose against your neck and breathe you in.
Don't look for beauty in people.. they're temporary, in all the meanings of the word.
Or do...
Sell yourself to the cause.
Sacrifice your life for the verses.
Make a whole gallery of gone in a nowhere exhibition.
Hoarse your voice from singing too high for your throat.
Cry until your next one retreats after tasting the salt on your cheek.
I mean, that's when good artists get made, right.?
If the fortunate could, they'd die for the ability to feel the soft flesh of a face in the paper.
With just a pencil they could caress whoever!!
Feel the strands of hair as they'd scribble over and over their scalp..
Touch their lips while drawing every wrinkle, feel the sharpness of their teeth as they'd get closer and closer..
To not mess anything up, to get it all right.
So close their faces would merge.
So close they could feel their muse breathing over their nose.
So close they'd convince themselves it was a mutual study, for their pupils would be conveniently drawn together.
As close as they could ever be.
And they could look into it every day, for hours on end, making up poems in their nutty brains.
About every mark they made themselves.
My heart doesn't care about the real world anyway.
Some feelings, now..
They'll only make it in my imagination, my words...
My hands roaming my own body in careless desperation, and then utter shame.
Pulling on the corner of my mouth as my finger gets wet and cold.
Reminiscing on your name, as I see it right through my pillow, you know.. behind all those cloudy oil-like spills on my eyelids, in the darkness.
Then I move my eyes along the letters, the mannerisms of my own handwriting, just to see if I can remember...
So it feels a tad bit more than just a name.
So it feels a tad bit more like you.
I don't believe people go to heaven, or hell, or anything of that matter.
I believe they're here, closer than we think.
Their particles can become something beautiful, and I think they do.
They're sucked into the trees, by the cracks, through the wind.
Bees carry their dust into a flower, and that's what they become.
They come back as a butterfly, as a beetle, as one of those furry spiders.
I don't want them to be so out of reach.
Maybe I want to look around and still have that lingering hope...
That something, something alive, is her.
Alice...
I can write about you forever, rewrite old letters that don't make sense anymore.
Still, no amount of words is enough.
I'll never get it all out.
No amount of words will make people see your eyes through the pages.
My most precious reader has theirs closed.
What am I supposed to do with all the rest?
...With all these people?
How am I supposed to know who they are?
Or care?
I've run my fingers along other girls' strands of hair.
Bleached, dyed, curly, pin-straight, wavy mounts in the palm of my hands.
So short,
I'd accidentally touch their exposed collar while helping them cut it, grazing the scissors sharp and quick on their skin.
They'd tell me it was fine.
They "didn't even feel it".
So long,
I'd let myself hanging by the neck while their strings pulled me up.
As the oxygen slowly stopped flowing to my brain.
I'd tell myself that that wasn't the reason why I felt so suffocated.
I'd say:
"This is just right, this is just enough for me."
And, right now, alone, your lips on my mind, I mumble the same.
Alice, I can't help but dwell on my questions.
On that night, when I drove back to my house, after all those words we shared.
A hauntingly cheerful song played on the radio..
All your words did ricochet back and forth the walls of my skull.
Were you completely honest?
Did you tell me everything, all your thoughts?
On that night, a few hours after I left, did you tell yourself you would put an end to everything?
If so, why didn't you message me?
Were you afraid I'd cause an accident driving back in desperation?
Did you not want me to get a speeding ticket?
Were you afraid I would try to stop you?
..Did you see the light at the end of the tunnel?
Is it better not feeling anything at all now, than surviving on the sprinkles of white, white salt in the starry night sky?
Nights made for dreaming, wasted on bad sleep.
Days filled with sun rays, meant for greatness, wasted on you.
Is that how you felt, my petal?
You were great, you were greatness.
And while I could touch you, I was lucky.
Now that I can't, I go back to being a devotee.
I saw you, in my dream last week.
I see you, in the wood planks in my room, cross-legged.
I glance at you, when I pass through the bench where we never sat the right way.
And I ought to believe you existed somewhere in my timeline.
I need to keep reminding myself to believe.
But while you were made of flesh and bone, while I couldn't know you'd have to go away..
I think there was a subtle hint.
A permanent sweetness in your voice.
A certain way the sun would light your face.
That would put this unbelievable certainty in my mind.. about how you didn't belong here.
Selfishly, we all wanted you to stick along.
Honestly, I should've seen that coming.