To YOU: I'm Dead

I had to die. For you. And to you too.

When your hands brushed against mine, I couldn't sense the urgency in your fingers. It was natural, perhaps accidental. And then you started telling me the story of the princess. And I started talking about how you are beautiful and how beautiful you are.

"How much" was a spiel on the degree of your beauty and "how you are beautiful" was about my perception. I circled you, looked for that angle from which you are not that beautiful but couldn't find it, really. Piled up the books we collected and balanced your face on top of it to see which looked better. And I couldn't even remember the titles or the authors. You passed. Your overwhelming beauty made me gasp... for breath, and for reality to sink in at times. "Someone tell me she is a dream."

While I was wallowing in self pity about you, toying with the possibility of falling for you, trying to build up a story about you, you came running to me with that packet full of groceries dangling. I could see some tuna, some canned sardines, and celery. You are in love with me, you said. I didn't look at your face.

And I had to die. I had to leave that generic letter for nobody in particular. Much like our "to whomsoever it might concern" letters that are aimed at the air around us. I left it for the police. And for the person who will find my body eventually. I am not Pamuk's corpse though. I had to die because I wanted to quietly slink away from your mind that I'd been fucking for so long. And I did. I hid. I cooked up a body in my imagination and left it for them. And they were still looking for it while the doctor gave my death certificate almost in a trance. The insurance claims are already being processed. The house behind yours is vacant. The last place you will search for me.

Not sure I like being dead. Because I am alive. And my mothballed second identity has been brought out and dusted. The money, the money. The money has to come quick and I can't resist rubbing my hands against each other in anticipation. The only thing I can think of is travel. But I can't go very far from you either.

Why did you fall for me? I could live with me falling for you or anybody else, but why did you have to? I am not used to this, you know. Of people like you falling for me? Or people falling for me in general. They don't, with emaciated, yellow, wrinkled dogs. Harsh? I am. On myself, mostly, but then, that's twisted modesty if you read my mind. That's fishing. That's expecting you to say you want to make love to me although you are not attracted. But then you say you are in love.

Are you confusing me?

When I told the other woman about you, she threw a piece of brick through her window at me. She keeps solid bricks inside her house. To throw at passersby and dogs. Or for the kicks of it. She had thrown me out of her house when I hadn't held her with affection after we fucked. She too, like you, likes to call it making love. I prefer fuck. She wants to see me bruised but still wants me to forget you and go back. This is getting confessional so I will keep it private, but heart of hearts I haven't thought about making out with you. I have, but the thoughts couldn't grow into anything realizable. Some cop in my fantasies rejected them. I would prefer a walk down a jungle path, listening to your princess story. It was unfinished, if you remember. Yes, I would definitely love to hold on to your soft hands.

You wonder why I use words like "beautiful" and "soft" despite them being used ad nauseam, but even today, beautiful is just that, a superlative in its own right, and soft is just like a rabbit's bosom.

The house the house. Will it cage me in? The second identity, will it let me go far and wide?

The freedom from life, will it kill me in the end?