All I Want Is Not To Die

For Me, The Most Powerful Way To Write About Something Is Through The Absence Of It. Rather Than Writing About What It Was To Become A New Mother, I Wrote, For Example, A Father Facing Death And Addressing His Estranged Son About The Regrets Of His Relationship.

There Was No One To Call Me To Bed, No One To Demand That The Rhythms Of My Life Operate In A Duet.

She [my Mother] Was The Force Around Which Our World Turned. My Mother Was Propelled Through The Universe By The Brute Force Of Reason. She Was The Judge In All Our Arguments. One Disapproving Word From Her Was Enough To Send Us Off To Hide In A Corner, Where We Would Cry And Fantasize Our Own Martyrdom. And Yet. One Kiss Could Restore Us To Princedom. Without Her, Our Lives Would Dissolve Into Chaos.

The Truth Is That She Told Me She Couldn't Love Me. When She Said Goodbye, She Was Saying Goodbye Forever. And Yet. I Made Myself Forget. I Don't Know Why. I Keep Asking Myself. But I Did.

In Life We Sit At The Table And Refuse To Eat, And In Death We Are Eternally Hungry.