The Death Scene Artist

1. A Single Thread

Posted: 11/08/2013

I never know who to wear. It doesn’t matter the situation. When I glance inside my closet it’s like nothing fits – like I’ve amassed an entire wardrobe of impractical uses and pointless endeavours. I often don’t know what I was thinking – in what world did I imagine I’d have occasion for an Italian restauranteur with such calloused hands? Or a pale, waiflike artist, a trust-fund baby from SoHo whose fingertips and nails are permanently crusted with oil paint? Or a tall, Black lifestyle and boudoir photographer from just outside of Richmond, Virginia?

Staring at the outfits at my disposal, one hand on the pronounced bone of my hip, my mind stumbles back to the very beginning of this mess. It felt so silly then, to be so … excited, I guess. Giddy. Ecstatic. Pulsating with energy and uncertainty, but not in a bad way, not with any degree of anxiety.

Which is all the f*****g dumber in retrospect. But hindsight’s a motherfucker. Almost as much as you were.

Few outfits still remain in my wardrobe, hand-stitched composites hung in protective plastic sheaths like the sort you get from the dry cleaner. I take them out every other day and lay them on the floor of my 350-square-foot one-room cockroach hostel, and gently rub them down with a solution of salt and lime to preserve them, keep them pliant, keep them from smelling of dismemberment. Fix whatever I can – wear and tear, gaps where the threading has come loose. Every now and then I’m forced to dig into the scraps I keep soaking in a Tupperware container in the fridge, fishing out a patch of human skin of as similar a tone and texture as possible, though my options are increasingly limited – it’s been some time since I’ve stocked up on swatches, or for that matter full sleeves, and supplies are running low. The work seems more effort now than it ever used to be. I suppose that’s what happens when you get accustomed to doing things not on your f*****g own.

Will anyone read this? If I hit post, will this leave any trace or imprint upon the world? If I finish this bottle of Xanax, right now, will I slip into a coma and die before finding out? Inquiring minds, and all that s**t.

Fuck it, I’m ready. I’m jumping and you’re coming with me, even if I have to tie a goddamn rope around your neck. We can hit bottom together, bleed, together, until there’s nothing left. Because this isn’t just my story to tell, and I’m absolutely, for-f*****g-real, not doing this on my own.