Sunday, February 17, 2008

it's really something when your suicide note has drafts.

3 comments:

FreNeTic said...

i had 2 drafts for the last one: the first was an incredulous, trying, 35 pages. i decided i needed an editor: does anyone care about the whispy facial hair of the kid at the pawn shop where I bought a gun? didn't thinks so. i tried again, scrapped it - and came up with a poetic 9 pages that forgot to mention any of the details about why i was ending my life. You might interject that this wasn't a draft - more a rewrite - and you'd be correct. in the spirit of the endeavor, i had deleted the original (the last thing you want to see happen is people seeing your attempts at a suicide note - it's not like the drafts are going to be re-issued on the 10th anniversary of your death in a deluxe edition) so i was working with a short-term memory weakened by whiskey.

Anyhow, the second 'draft' suffered the same fate as the first. Which was hard, because it was something I was proud of. There were a few phrases that would have looked good engraved on an urn. But like I said, very little about me, about causal events, frame of mind, etc.

The third was a nice kiss-off weighing in at a modest 3 pages, but bereft of a will to die. It was a parting gift to an ex-lover.

i don't know if it was 'really something'. i guess it's a little funny when your suicide letter turns into a running journal. I guess the key is to keep writing suicide letters; to never be satisfied with them.

Michelle Auer said...

I've never written a suicide letter but I have written my share of eulogies for both people who have died and for people who I love that I think might die if their lifestyle doesn't change.
I had a friend who was deeply involved in drugs a few years back and I would write his eulogy over and over again, more for my own sanity than anything else. I intend to live to be a healthy 93, thus outliving most everyone I know. Using this logic, I think I should at least attempt to draft my eulogy, so that my kid doesn't miss anything. :-)

for_the_lonely said...

I love you Bree