This Was My Way Of Dying Today

[Necrofeelya]

Mirror pleasure death. And suddenly I felt okay, this was my way of dying today.

Personal account from New Orleans

by Brittany Vipond

No one could hurt me, if I just kept walking.

I asked him to light my ciggarette, not for advice.

“What’s the matta girl, you’re so beautiful. I bet you could have any man you wanted, other than the one you wanted. Don’t you know it always works that way?”

Ha ha ha… He chuckled and I turned away.

“Come back girl. Don’t you wanna talk? I could love you. Let’s go for a walk.”

People are dying I told him, and so am I. But he didn’t get it. So I kept walking.

Walking and walking and walking until my coffee was as cold as the wind, and my face was numb, and there was a hole forming in the sole of my leather boot.

I tried to remember all of the hope I brought to this city when I first arrived, as I stood inside a sliver of sunlight hoping for some kind of revelation. And just for a moment I felt okay.

“Hey Sexy,” said another passerby, and I felt sick in my empty stomach.

They all want you, they all wanna love you and touch you all over. You’re so shiny and new to them. Until they see whats inside of you, until they see the scars on your skin, until they see you broken down, the decaying skeleton beneath that your skin.

Then suddenly they feel like some kind of necropheliac. Then it’s back to the girls with new shoes and flowers in their hair. They may not be as much fun but at least they’re still alive.

And they don’t realize that they’re the ones who killed you in the first place. When you were young and your mother wasn’t home and they said “come here girl, your so pretty. I’ll teach you what life is all about.”

They told you, you were beautiful. And you were. Thank god for that. Thank god for men.

So I kept walking. In search of this wonderful bookstore I’d seen yesterday, I was in such a daze I could hardly remember where it was. But I was determined to find it, and finally I did. And as I sat on the couch writing this, a man stopped and said…

“You’re so pretty, why don’t you smile?”

And I felt like I could hardly breathe.

So I ran home.

I adjusted the mirror just right and undressed myself for it. I ran my cold hands over warm skin, this time without any fear. I’m still alive. But the whole world is burning up and I’m just lying here. Pleasure was as close to death as I could get, so I thought of you, and I let your shadow lick me in-between glances and I lifted myeslf higher and higher with my reflection, until I was dying, I’m dying I’m dying. And I died there in my own arms. I kissed myself and the mirror and couldn’t help but just fucking laugh.

I left the house without my lighter. I asked a stranger for a light, and told him, “Thank you, sir.”

He laughed and said “Don’t call me sir, I work for a living and no one has knighted me yet.”

And he didn’t call me pretty or ask for my phone number, and he smiled and so did I as I walked away.

I thought to myself, strangers are really the most interesting people you can meet, and then for another moment I felt okay. This was my way of dying today.