i dream in infrared

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I often think of getting out. Killing myself. No big deal, no public scene. Just doing it. I think about blowing my brains out with a pistol. The other day I was going through a textbook of dead bodies. I turned to the section that dealt with suicide. There were dead bodies swinging in prison cells, dead bodies with multiple, deep slash wounds on the inner arms. Dead bodies with throats cut, one lady nearly cut her damn head off. Finally the book came to the pictures of the ones who killed themselves with guns. One picture really caught my attention. A man had put the barrel of a rifle into his mouth and pulled the trigger. The man’s mouth was twisted into an arrogant sneer. His nose was turned slightly upward due to the upward trajectory of the bullet. The rest of the man’s head was gone. The face folded backward over the remainder of the skull. I said, ‘Someone had to clean that all up.’

That would be a drag for someone that I like to walk in on my corpse. What if I blew my brains all over the wall? That’s not fair. I would go to a place where I didn’t know anyone. I would leave an envelope of money and a note apologizing for the mess and thanking them for cleaning my brains up. Maybe I would go over to a person’s house that I hated and do it there, let him worry about the mess. That’s a great idea. Blow your head off in somebody’s bedroom. It will be a long time before he’ll be able to get it up in that room again.

Sometimes I just want to get out. Nothing that I can explain very clearly. I’ve been like this as long as I can remember. Sometimes I feel like I want to get out. I get a lump in my throat and my stomach starts feeling cold. I sink inside myself and start to solidify. I try to cry to get things moving, nothing comes. Sometimes I want to get out. I feel as if I never knew anything but that cold paralysis. I don’t want to be a picture in a text book that someone will use for a term paper. I just want to get out. Sometimes I just want to get out. Sometimes it gets so cold in here I want to build a roaring fire using my body for kindling. Another man torches himself in his cell. It happens all the time and I know why. Existence can be such a freeze out. You could wait forever for a warming touch, you could freeze solid waiting. Better to burn than to freeze. Incinerate. Turn to ash. If you dream in your sleep tonight and your dreams are of the sun, touch me. I feel so cold tonight.

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