To Be, or Not to Be

Austin Lawrence

I don't want to be the writer who only writes when he cries: the words falling from my mouth and fingertips like the tears falling from my eyes, or the blood pouring from my wounds. I don't want to find beauty in the ugliness I experience; something I once kept in a close embrace but had to let loose in an attempt to live.

Why is it that we glorify the death of the dead? The 27 club coursed through my veins, just like the drugs that killed them, all before my soft, childish thumb could even learn to keep the flint wheel down on my white lighter. The feeling of success in sadness motivates me to lose. I hate the sadness. I hate the hollowness. I hate the heartbroken words I scream across an empty mall parking lot for no one to hear, for everyone to hear.

I publicize my shame like a networking actor. A tear in every image, crooked and cracked teeth form unforgiving excuses of smiles. I live for this, I die for this. I hate it and I love it. I am nothing if I am not my sadness, so I grip its hand, intertwine my fingers with its own until I've gripped so tight my fingers break, just like my knuckles had against the brick walls of my old high school. I still have the scars: morphed and textured, a tattoo of white ink permanently engraved on my skin. A memory that feels detached from who I am now.

Now I grip my own hand, fingers folding over one another like the blanket my grandmother gave me; warm and soft. I kiss my own healed over knuckles with a tenderness I’ve never felt. Did my success die off when my sadness did? Am I talented only when I'm torn into bits and pieces of a person? Why am I near wishing for something so destructive to return when I finally feel real and alive?