amphibi.us

So you want to die but
you can’t. Ay, there’s the rub. I bet
it feels a little like wanting to come
when you can’t come. Masturbation
and suicide have a lot in common,
don’t they, Uncle Walter? I mean
you want to get off, don’t you?
You want to get out. You want to
take your life, take your death
into your own hands, and kind of
rub the shit out of it. You want to
go to Oregon, ay, but the rub is
you have to be a resident there;
you have to have lived there awhile before
they will help you to die there. So there you lie
in your hospice bed like someone with no hands
who is dying to come. And who
can you ask for help with that among
the children and grandchildren gathered
around your sickbed? They won’t do it for you,
you sick old man. Nor will that beautiful
diffident young nurse who comes in the evenings.
Once you could have done it yourself—
but now it’s too late for that. And it’s a little
sick, isn’t it, that I should be thinking of you,
as I touch myself now, as I bring myself
to climax, giving myself another petit mort,
which I know you would kill for, Uncle Walter.

© Paul Hostovsky, 2010

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