Heartbreak—no matter how predictable or anticipated—lands as a singularity, a before-and-after point. Once there was warm certainty, now cold distance. Once there was we, now only me. Once there was you, but now you are her.
Rehab doesn’t work
Generalizations are usually not a good idea. This one holds. This is not a qualitative deconstruction. There is no agenda. Look at the numbers. Crowdsource the answer. You can lie, but 1 billion nods move in the same way. Listen to anecdotes. Ask anyone even tangential to the process. Yes and no questions are rare, but here, the answer, like 1+1 is always 2, is always no. I can point to 200 that died today. In memoriam. Black and white. Slow-motion. That’s heroin and alcohol. Those are easy. It doesn’t matter. Choose something slightly less toxic, at least slower. Tobacco? Sugar? Ask someone to stop. Put a black lung on Instagram, then reply with a cirrhotic liver. Give someone a new lung. A new liver. Say,” Don’t smoke.” “Don’t drink.” Metastasis is far more clever than you are. It’s far more insidious than even me. Just quit. You know better. Try harder. Yes, 12 steps that anyone can choose at any time, and it’s all in this big blue book. Now, choose it. Choose. You’re not trying. It’s your original sin that makes you choose otherwise. It’s a choice. You choose no. You choose to lie where you are. You are choosing. To lie. Lie where you are. Don’t choose. Don’t choose. You. For the overwhelming majority, rehab doesn’t work.
Spleen
I think my spleen hurts. I’m not quite sure where my spleen is, left side, I’m pretty sure, that’s why I’m not 100% on the diagnosis. I fell when I was drunk a few years back; it’s not like my pee is orange or has blood in it.
I used to tell people that my family dies of things they put in their mouth, mostly cigarettes, but sometimes too much food or alcohol (once it was an ice pick through the mouth into the carotid, but I don’t think that counts in the spirit I intended). I don’t smoke. And for a long time now, I don’t drink. Mine would be the first spleen casualty, though I’m pretty sure you can live without your spleen if it’s removed before its rupture causes peritonitis or, more likely, exsanguination. I’m sure there have been times when my liver could have been happier with me. I cross the street carefully.
People want to die fast. While sleeping if possible. There will never be a DNR order on my charts. I want to live forever by any means necessary. Dulce et decorum es pro dignitas morti. Bullshit. I see no nobility in giving up. My personal black eternity happened for at least 13.6 billion years before me, and I’m not looking forward to going back.
On the other hand, even if you believe in all that rah! rah! Christian stuff, living forever seems like it might get boring. I get tired after an hour of sex or seven hours at Disneyland and I love both of those.