Monday, August 26, 2013

got a machinehead better than the rest

deaths come in 3s.  i never knew about this urban legend until a couple weeks ago when my dad muttered it to me while he sat on the edge of the wall near the pool, kicking his boot lazily against the tile, adding to the dirt and piles of leaves floating in there, looking off toward the tractor, toward the bamboo, toward the sunset with whimsical indifference.  his mother had died in may, then his younger sister in june and just a few days ago his brother's wife died.  that's three; one, two, three.

should i feel somewhat safe now that the cycle is supposedly complete?  or should i just look toward and worry over the next cycle, the one that is sure to come in time, the one that could commence in four years, in 2017?  i make a point of calling out that number because like 2013 it is odd and miserable.  i feel like i am doomed for sorrow in that year, assuming of course i make it that far.  i am after all reckless, cavalier and an avid seat-belt opposer (in this nanny state).

jack kerouac says that pretty girls make graves.  although i wouldn't say it quite like that, i think his general point has merit.  but it is not necessarily pretty girls but sex that makes graves because if we are so unlucky to indulge in sex and by some accidental condom malfunction be burdened with a child (this in a world of choicelessness championed for by the "gods and guns batshitcrazy republicans"), that child will grow up in a world of chaotic strife and then some day die without ever being content or knowing the secrets of the universe.  we are selfish for bringing children into the world, this world or any other, just to die miserable, horrible despondent deaths.  all deaths are miserable whether you die in your sleep when you're ninety or because you got flung off your motorcycle in the middle of 15 freeway hectic happy hour traffic and run over by thousands of wayward drivers, ending up on a morgue slab looking like ground meat in pieces.  i digress.

the miscreants that rail against abortion i will never understand and not just because they are god-fearing and irrational but also because they are batshitcrazy and unappealingly ignorant.  abortion is the saving grace of our society, NAY our world; abortion saves people from having to grow up, having to live pathetically unfulfilled lives and then ultimately die horrible deaths.  we should get to have sex without fears of making graves; i wouldn't wish life on my worst detractor, my absolute highest nemesis.

the doctor said my mom should have had an abortion is a line in a song, a song that i happen to really dig right now because it speaks some veritable truths that harken back to middle school days when it first blasted the socal radios and i had no idea at all what it meant (but i liked it nevertheless).  and where was i anyway?

sex makes graves, people make graves by making more people to fill more graves.  i wish i had no part in the ruthless, pitiless, remorseless cycle but sadly i have already become convinced (because i am selfish) that i will have a child or children perhaps, at least a son and at least a daughter because i have a real, quantifiable interest in seeing what they will look like and what their talents will be.  i'm a hypocrite (fully admitted), and not just because i will have children for the hell of it, for the experience, but also because, as my mother puts it, i sleep around and tempt biology and fate, which is true but not something i would ever exclaim, mostly because of social protocol, but in due time i will convince one of these men who seem to adore me to procreate and bring some more graves into this world, little graves that look like me and smile like me and think like me.

graves are exactly what we don't need but we all make them.  now i'm going to circle back to my point, to the thesis statement that i have been as yet ignoring, like a bad English student, like a rotten learner, mr. turner would be unproud.  has it become avant-garde and trendy to cremate a body?  two of the three deaths that i have aforementioned in this year thirteen, two of three have been cremated.  is this a new thing? i know that i wouldn't want such things for my own remains; i want to have at least one remnant left on this earth that has some sort of definitive presence long after i'm gone.  how else will they know i ever lived?  i have to get credit for something.  i don't see myself shattering any kind of glass ceilings, assuming there are any left to shatter, and i don't see myself becoming legendary in any other kind of sense so my bones will be all that remains.  I'm pretty sure i don't want to have them snuffed out as well.

but i guess i shouldn't care a ton about bones and remains and legacies because according to science this whole world will be snuffed out in due time, when the sun rises for the very last day, blinding red hot and full of frenzied energy, atoms and molecules shooting off at hundred thousand degrees fahrenheit ready to burn, churn, and scorn, to obliterate and decimate the life out of any and all that remain on the planet.  at least i will be in the ground by then, long gone, long dead.  at that point i suppose nobody will care much about bones or legacies or really anything at all.

darkness will envelope and people will see beyond religion, beyond wars, beyond strife and beyond the differences that they mock, beyond to the truth that all of this has been one great big experiment in futility. this has all been exceedingly worthless.

without worth.



* [capital letters were foregone intentionally]

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