Any Man

by Amber Tamblyn

Yes, I am still breathing. No, I am not living.

My eyes are no longer a part of my body. We do not know each other. I see them, but they do not see me.

The human smile no longer makes sense to me. Why is it a sign of happiness? Who decided that?

Every day I die again. My family lives a life of burial. Everything makes me want to cry. Everything makes me angry. Everything makes me numb. Repeat. I’m tired. Paranoid. I’m cold most of the time, wearing full sweaters in the hot spring.”

Lucky for me, or those trees, I couldn’t find one of them I’d want to put through that. My death, I mean.

It’s important that I say this, though: It’s not your fault, whatever happened to you. It’s not your fault. But healing your own pain does belong to you now. When we become aware, we become responsible.

I know despair. Known it for years. I’ve introduced it to my family and spent holidays with it. I argue with it about how to load the dishwasher. I watch TV with it at night. I take a shit in the morning by its side. I go for long walks at dusk and let it spew its foul thoughts in my ears. I take it to the doctor when it’s not feeling well. I ride home with it after every show I do, especially the good ones. That’s when despair really likes to be there for me. To remind me it was just a fluke. I thank despair for keeping me honest. For never lying to me. I take it up to my place for a nightcap. I fuck it to feel better. I wake up a bitter man.

How can you forgive yourself? How can you enjoy the trees and not plead continuous fucking guilt to them? How can you end your own suffering, without ending completely? How can you accept touch? Or walk through your life, a lived wound, forever avoiding some terrible, inevitable wind.”

I am in a body. It is not the one I came here with, but it is the one I’ll leave here in. I will take care of it. It belongs to me now. My pain, I will take care of it. It belongs to me now. My heart, I will take care of it. It belongs to me now. My story, I will take care of it. It belongs to me now. I experienced death but I am not a ceasing. These hands remain sorcerers. This mind contains many moons pulling gravities. Every memory is an ocean, every remembrance a tide. I have the right to recede. I have the right to swell. And though I am estranged from the sun, I am a brightness, lit from within.