Hey mate. I was thinking the other day about that time you lived in that flat in Potts Point and woke up stark naked out on William Street because you went sleepwalking and locked yourself out of your place. Remember how the cops drove by and they were all, what the fuck dude and you explained it to them and while you were waiting for a locksmith they gave you one of those CSI suits to wear. It was a funny story. But is it, or is sleepwalking to that degree indicative of deeper, not-so-great stuff going on in somebodies head and heart?
Indicative - there's a word. Not only does it have the sound "dick" in it but there were many indications in your life that your life was not going great. Detour signs, stop signs, "TURN BACK, WRONG WAY" .. bumpy road ahead. Potholes. Expired parking meters. A lot of the people in your life didn't miss those signs in you. A lot of us tried to reach in and grab your pulsating heart to prove to you that you were still alive and still here.
Anyway so you're still not alive and you're still not here because life ends for us all but you ended yours prematurely of your own accord and quite frankly fuck you so hard for begging and making me promise that if you killed yourself there would be no funeral. Fuck your six-page suicide addressed to me ... umm, any idea how it feels like to be the person you dictated all your "tying up of loose ends?" Basically I feel like a murderer - dude, I wish you hadn't have done that. I know you'd have no idea of the impact but christ on a cracker, what was I, your fucking suicide secretary? Exactly a month after you died I crashed my car because I fell asleep driving two hours to the beach house after having dinner with a heap of your friends. So I drove around in your silver Cruze sedan for a while until my insurance came through. You forgot some loose ends ... you forgot you left your black unlined notebook in the side pocket of your drivers seat, detailing your planning of your demise. I see you researched ropes and how to tie knots first, before you started getting quotes on gas cylinders. Who the fuck cares about price differences in the gas cylinders they're going to kill themselves with when they're about to die anyway? Like fifty bucks is going to make a huge difference - for what? That's just stupid.
You're stupid. You're a stupid fucking arrogant cocksucker for doing what you did and I will never ever hate you for it and the thing that I guess is slightly worrisome now is I completely understand why you'd want no funeral. Because fuck a bunch of people coming to sit solemnly in pews weeping and saying all the nice things. Where were they when you couldn't sleep for three days straight and you had the dead eyes going on and you were a little boy who needed ... more.
Thing is, you grew up and wouldn't let hardly anybody in. A lot of people tried and did their best. Yeah life is hard but it is for all of us. Some more than others - much more. For example, I feel so fucked up and low at this juncture I just kind of walk around with my shoulders slumped reminding myself life is just temporary so just live it anyway. There's not many people left for me, anymore. Very, very few close friends and a handful of family. I'm so far outside of my wife/mother role that I just don't know how I'll get through because the ferocity of love I have for my sons is the same I have for you. And you're gone and the last few weeks I have been seeing you EVERYWHERE. Legit three or four times every day lately I see a guy in the street and for 0.003 seconds I think THERE HE IS! And it's never you. Strange thing is I keep looking - sometimes weirding guys out because I just keep looking intently trying to will you back into existence with my very mind powers but no. No, sweetheart. You is gone.
And my grief allocation expired years ago, people get annoyed or chirpy chipper telling me some bullshit about some bullshit but you can't wrap a big fat pink bow around one of the deepest cuts a Soul's ever experienced so these days I just say nothing. I don't even write about you much anymore. Someone yelled at me (more than once) ALL YOU FUCKING DO IS SIT ON YOUR COMPUTER AND WRITE ABOUT YOUR DEAD BROTHER. I'm not even pissed he said it because he was right. Truth hurts. Everything hurt. My life crashed and burnt after you died but let's face it, I hadn't been travelling great for a few years beforehand anyway so I don't blame it all on your death. But death does have a way of tearing your entire existence apart. I lost so many things after you left. I fucked up so bad - and have been fucked over so bad in return. Life is bullshit. I don't like it even more now. I really don't give that many fucks about many things anymore. It's freeing to not give a fuck, the trick is to just give a fuck about the RIGHT things. Hopefully my guys will catch on to that. Max is taller than me now. He's stunning. Remember that time when you lived with us and you sat him down and taught him the "proper" way to play Pokemon cards? Because of course you did, you bloody all-knowing dork. Remember he's sitting there and after listening to you talk for about ten minutes I clocked the look on his face and told you mate, you're boring him. And you were but he was too polite to tell you. Rocco's into Pokemon cards now too ... as was his biggest brother fourteen years ago. I'm quite looking forward to the Pokemon stage being over because for a start, those packs are EXPENSIVE. Some little shit from Rocco's school stole his best card AND the Pokemon book I bought him.
"Right. What's his name. I'm coming into school to get them back."
"Mum, I'm not telling you his name because I know what you're like."
All my sons know what a brash, ballsy, put-up-with-no-shit-fuck-a-bitch-up mother I am. They've all told me repeatedly over the years that I'm not a normal mum, probably because I'm not a normal mum. I fucking loathe doing canteen, serving little kids icy poles with my tattooed arms. I put myself through the anxiety hell of canteen just so for the whole of recess Rocco gets to be the man and rack up a tab of buying shit for all his mates. One day it cost me $17 but I hadn't seen him for a while - worth every penny.
I keep getting into legal trouble and should basically set up a camp bed at Katoomba Courthouse now. It's not really fun, it's fucked. Everything I am gets literally dragged out and used against me in a court of law so help me, god. Centrelink doesn't cover my rent. I'm not particularly successful right now but what the hell is success at this point in time? Sometimes it's just existing. Taking a rest before the next hurdle.
So my future is looking quite shit and scary but hey, I'm picking Rocco up tomorrow and he'll be with me for a while and on Saturday when the calendar marks exactly three years since you died, me and Rocco are going to Marina's house to mind Logan - yeah Rini had a kid. She got married .. her and Ariel and Morgan are all grown up and incredible and have been through hell and back and it's so so nice to be in their lives again. I talk to Uncle Stevie about a lot of shit. It's so fucking vital to be real with people and he rings to check up on me and reminds me that I'm not alone, and family is everything.
Sometimes family isn't everything though, hey. I miss you. Can you hear me when I talk to you and narrate my latest fucked-up episode to you usually at 2am when I can't sleep and I'm just laugh-crying at the latest bullshit escapade I got myself into again? Remember playing Kings Quest on that archaic computer when we lived in England in 1988 right before your dad killed himself and you and I just both could NOT destroy Mannanan the Evil Wizard? Still shits me to this day.
Remember you and I were watching Never-ending Story when we were kids and when the white horse got stuck in the mud and sunk and died you cried so uncontrollably I had to turn the video off? I took you for a walk up to Mt Riv shops to cheer you up with a few King Rat lollies - you were always a jube guy. Remember I used to call you upstairs and had wrapped up some lame thing hanging around my bedroom and made a really big deal out of it and you unwrapped the newspaper wrapping - you'd get so excited. Until one day you grew a bit older and you just looked at me like, Ede, this is just one of your manky toys.
Hey where DID Oofie go? He wasn't in the stuff you half-packed into boxes before you died. By the way I gave your four white Ikea chairs away. Threw your Wimbledon hat in the bin. Along with your cologne, your suicide planning book, and your wallet. I cut up all your credit cards and mining license cards (YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE BECOME A MINER) and your drivers license. When I did it I was siting on my kitchen floor sobbing and my tears fell on all your cut up cards and I just kept saying out loud that I'm sorry but I can't hold onto your stuff anymore, it was heavier than the moon. I knew you'd understand. I took it all up to a bin in Katoomba Street because I couldn't put it all in my kitchen bin because it just needed to be out of my house and when I went to chuck it all in the bin it was about 4pm and the street was busy with people walking past and all these pieces of your cut-up cards and licenses fell all over the street so I'm there cry-laughing picking it all up piece by piece coz I cut them all up real small, you know? And that - exactly that is one of the many times I turn my eyes skyward and address you and just tell you oh my fucking god Cam this is my life right now is this absurd or what?
I wanna talk to you about the Rothschilds banks and the Federal Reserve and who's funding all the wars and what's your latest girlfriend like and how I took Rocco to Wet'n'Wild last week and when I was in a cafe ordering my double-shot latte I opened my emails and found out I was officially divorced. Who the fuck finds out they're divorced at a theme park. The finality hit me so bad and hard I stood there for about a minute openly weeping and people were staring (See: not giving a fuck) and I called my friend Naomi to talk me down but if you were alive I would have called you first. And you would have made me laugh.
So yeah you died in spring and it's spring again now and I'm not even angry at the cherry blossoms this year. They got a right to bloom - it's not their fault. The other day I was half-heartedly pushing clothes around my bedroom "cleaning" and I found your unwashed t-shirt ... this exact one, actually:
Haven't smelt it in over a year so I took the biggest, biggest inhale and it still smells like you. And I didn't cry. And I'll never wash it.
I miss your face and your laugh and your HUMOUR and your beautiful caring heart and so many other beautiful things about you you couldn't see. I don't miss your dead eyes, your sad defeat, your chronically inexplicably evil depression. I'm still here living, life's still fucked - you're not missing anything really. Except we're missing you, Cam. All of the people who loved you so so so much - we're all missing you. You are missed. The babies you will never have are missed - you might have even built that mud-brick house if you stayed, and lived in it and found some kind of tolerable grasp on a piece of meaningful happy existence. We should have had a funeral for us, not you. Would have been nice to hear stories about you we'll never hear.
I'm writing this all out now before Saturday because fuck Saturday to hell and I'll be with my boy and he's seen me cry enough, too much. But I'm really quite fucked up at the moment so spare me some fucking afterlife grace or some shit because I need it, brother.
Ok I love you. See you maybe again one day or never. Who knows. Gotta go, bro. It's 2am and this six-pack of cinnamon donuts aren't going to eat themselves. Hey I've still got your couch - it's a good couch. Rocco's thoroughly trashed it with spilt drinks and food and I don't mind at all because it means your couch is being lived in - SO lived in.
Anyway so you're still not alive and you're still not here because life ends for us all but you ended yours prematurely of your own accord and quite frankly fuck you so hard for begging and making me promise that if you killed yourself there would be no funeral. Fuck your six-page suicide addressed to me ... umm, any idea how it feels like to be the person you dictated all your "tying up of loose ends?" Basically I feel like a murderer - dude, I wish you hadn't have done that. I know you'd have no idea of the impact but christ on a cracker, what was I, your fucking suicide secretary? Exactly a month after you died I crashed my car because I fell asleep driving two hours to the beach house after having dinner with a heap of your friends. So I drove around in your silver Cruze sedan for a while until my insurance came through. You forgot some loose ends ... you forgot you left your black unlined notebook in the side pocket of your drivers seat, detailing your planning of your demise. I see you researched ropes and how to tie knots first, before you started getting quotes on gas cylinders. Who the fuck cares about price differences in the gas cylinders they're going to kill themselves with when they're about to die anyway? Like fifty bucks is going to make a huge difference - for what? That's just stupid.
You're stupid. You're a stupid fucking arrogant cocksucker for doing what you did and I will never ever hate you for it and the thing that I guess is slightly worrisome now is I completely understand why you'd want no funeral. Because fuck a bunch of people coming to sit solemnly in pews weeping and saying all the nice things. Where were they when you couldn't sleep for three days straight and you had the dead eyes going on and you were a little boy who needed ... more.
"Right. What's his name. I'm coming into school to get them back."
"Mum, I'm not telling you his name because I know what you're like."
All my sons know what a brash, ballsy, put-up-with-no-shit-fuck-a-bitch-up mother I am. They've all told me repeatedly over the years that I'm not a normal mum, probably because I'm not a normal mum. I fucking loathe doing canteen, serving little kids icy poles with my tattooed arms. I put myself through the anxiety hell of canteen just so for the whole of recess Rocco gets to be the man and rack up a tab of buying shit for all his mates. One day it cost me $17 but I hadn't seen him for a while - worth every penny.
I keep getting into legal trouble and should basically set up a camp bed at Katoomba Courthouse now. It's not really fun, it's fucked. Everything I am gets literally dragged out and used against me in a court of law so help me, god. Centrelink doesn't cover my rent. I'm not particularly successful right now but what the hell is success at this point in time? Sometimes it's just existing. Taking a rest before the next hurdle.
So my future is looking quite shit and scary but hey, I'm picking Rocco up tomorrow and he'll be with me for a while and on Saturday when the calendar marks exactly three years since you died, me and Rocco are going to Marina's house to mind Logan - yeah Rini had a kid. She got married .. her and Ariel and Morgan are all grown up and incredible and have been through hell and back and it's so so nice to be in their lives again. I talk to Uncle Stevie about a lot of shit. It's so fucking vital to be real with people and he rings to check up on me and reminds me that I'm not alone, and family is everything.
Sometimes family isn't everything though, hey. I miss you. Can you hear me when I talk to you and narrate my latest fucked-up episode to you usually at 2am when I can't sleep and I'm just laugh-crying at the latest bullshit escapade I got myself into again? Remember playing Kings Quest on that archaic computer when we lived in England in 1988 right before your dad killed himself and you and I just both could NOT destroy Mannanan the Evil Wizard? Still shits me to this day.
Remember you and I were watching Never-ending Story when we were kids and when the white horse got stuck in the mud and sunk and died you cried so uncontrollably I had to turn the video off? I took you for a walk up to Mt Riv shops to cheer you up with a few King Rat lollies - you were always a jube guy. Remember I used to call you upstairs and had wrapped up some lame thing hanging around my bedroom and made a really big deal out of it and you unwrapped the newspaper wrapping - you'd get so excited. Until one day you grew a bit older and you just looked at me like, Ede, this is just one of your manky toys.
Hey where DID Oofie go? He wasn't in the stuff you half-packed into boxes before you died. By the way I gave your four white Ikea chairs away. Threw your Wimbledon hat in the bin. Along with your cologne, your suicide planning book, and your wallet. I cut up all your credit cards and mining license cards (YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE BECOME A MINER) and your drivers license. When I did it I was siting on my kitchen floor sobbing and my tears fell on all your cut up cards and I just kept saying out loud that I'm sorry but I can't hold onto your stuff anymore, it was heavier than the moon. I knew you'd understand. I took it all up to a bin in Katoomba Street because I couldn't put it all in my kitchen bin because it just needed to be out of my house and when I went to chuck it all in the bin it was about 4pm and the street was busy with people walking past and all these pieces of your cut-up cards and licenses fell all over the street so I'm there cry-laughing picking it all up piece by piece coz I cut them all up real small, you know? And that - exactly that is one of the many times I turn my eyes skyward and address you and just tell you oh my fucking god Cam this is my life right now is this absurd or what?
I wanna talk to you about the Rothschilds banks and the Federal Reserve and who's funding all the wars and what's your latest girlfriend like and how I took Rocco to Wet'n'Wild last week and when I was in a cafe ordering my double-shot latte I opened my emails and found out I was officially divorced. Who the fuck finds out they're divorced at a theme park. The finality hit me so bad and hard I stood there for about a minute openly weeping and people were staring (See: not giving a fuck) and I called my friend Naomi to talk me down but if you were alive I would have called you first. And you would have made me laugh.
So yeah you died in spring and it's spring again now and I'm not even angry at the cherry blossoms this year. They got a right to bloom - it's not their fault. The other day I was half-heartedly pushing clothes around my bedroom "cleaning" and I found your unwashed t-shirt ... this exact one, actually:
Haven't smelt it in over a year so I took the biggest, biggest inhale and it still smells like you. And I didn't cry. And I'll never wash it.
I miss your face and your laugh and your HUMOUR and your beautiful caring heart and so many other beautiful things about you you couldn't see. I don't miss your dead eyes, your sad defeat, your chronically inexplicably evil depression. I'm still here living, life's still fucked - you're not missing anything really. Except we're missing you, Cam. All of the people who loved you so so so much - we're all missing you. You are missed. The babies you will never have are missed - you might have even built that mud-brick house if you stayed, and lived in it and found some kind of tolerable grasp on a piece of meaningful happy existence. We should have had a funeral for us, not you. Would have been nice to hear stories about you we'll never hear.
I'm writing this all out now before Saturday because fuck Saturday to hell and I'll be with my boy and he's seen me cry enough, too much. But I'm really quite fucked up at the moment so spare me some fucking afterlife grace or some shit because I need it, brother.
Ok I love you. See you maybe again one day or never. Who knows. Gotta go, bro. It's 2am and this six-pack of cinnamon donuts aren't going to eat themselves. Hey I've still got your couch - it's a good couch. Rocco's thoroughly trashed it with spilt drinks and food and I don't mind at all because it means your couch is being lived in - SO lived in.
(Comments off because I can't handle them sorry.)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Write to be understood, speak to be heard. - Lawrence Powell