Imagine Me Gone

by Adam Haslett

It’s impossible, what I’m trying to do. To say good-bye without telling them I’m leaving.

I don’t particularly believe in a spiritual world, other than music.

When the world wants to kill you, sometimes inoculation requires killing little bits of yourself.

It’s just cruelty by other means. Requiring a person to stay alive. For you. Dad, for instance. I never blamed him. I never did. He reached his limit.”