image stolen from nytimes.com
Right before the plane took off she sent me an email. Said she was going to kill herself. Cut-and-pasted the research she was doing on method. Pills, carbon monoxide, helium. I knew all of these. Used to hear about them in texts from Astrid. Before that, other women.
They’re great communicators. They know to show not tell that they’re serious. A mere ”I am going to kill myself” means nothing from a woman. Even Anne Sexton and Sylvia fucking Plath wrote volumes of warnings first. Dragged it out over years. If you hear it from me once, I’m already dead. Went out with a bullet hoping WordPress’ “schedule future post” feature worked.
Girls, though. Girls say that shit all the time. Usually it’s pills. People say that women choose pills to leave a good-looking corpse. Bullshit. It’s because they know pills don’t work. They don’t want to die. They want to make you show that you love them.
With this girl it’s been about fifty times. Astrid, couple dozen. My first ex fiancee– had to be at least a hundred. And so on. Great communicators. They know about diminishing returns. First time you get “I want to take 30 Tylenol PM’s.” Then “I’m going to take 30 Tylenol PM’s.” Then “I just took 30 Tylenol PM’s,” past tense.
She’ll pick her moment. When you’re getting on a plane is a perfect. You’ll have to spend hours worrying about her. Able to do nothing. I bet they check the airline web site first to make sure your flight’s on time. I just took 30 Tylenol PM’s, please turn off all portable electronic devices. She wants you to storm the cockpit. Demand they turn the plane around. If you get arrested on terrorism charges, you must really love her.
Astrid liked to do it when I really needed sleep. Rough day lined up at work, right around bedtime. “I tok 30 ttyalenol PM’s.” Spelling fuck ups might just mean she’s drunk. But what if. What if it’s the pills kicking in. You text back “go make yourself puke.” Hear nothing. The tenth time. You know it’s fine. But maybe this is the one time, and it will be your fault if she dies. She wants you to drive over late, drunk yourself, streets full of cops. Kick down the bedroom door and beat your chest in agony at her still body on the bed. Then cry in triumph as her slow breath pushes a snot bubble out of her nose. He really loves me.
The tenth time but what if. A feeling like you’re on the freeway headed out of town, just realizing you left the stove on. You picture the blue gas flame catching the greasy pot holder, your screeching cat trapped, broiled alive. Your fault. You picture her, contorted, blue lips, string of puke the urinal cake color of Tylenol PM’s stringing from her lips. Gone forever. Your fault.
They want you to picture them dead. They want you to suffer to prove your love. Abuse is a chickenshit word, but that’s what it is. Every time, you think: no more of this. I’m getting out. But you can’t. Because what if that makes her really do it.
What if, what if. You fucking girls. Why can’t you just beat me like a normal person.
delicioustacos 
This post needs more dick jokes.
Shit’s morose as fuck man, goddamn.
heh, laughed aloud to “Shit’s morose as fuck man, goddamn.”
he’s writing from the heart. from experience. this sounds like it actually happened.
plus, like, fucking 90% of this site is morose as fuck.
we wouldn’t like it if he just wrote the way people write their ultra-positive little linkedin profiles, where the world is filled with sunshine and puppies.
another good piece, DT. you inspire me to write better.
Of course, I like this blog so much because it’s pure honesty: no bullshit, no sugarcoating. It’s how I try and write myself.
While the rest of the posts do mostly have a dark/edgy/offbeat theme to them, they usually have a good bit of humor as well. “Get a load of this life man, ain’t it a bitch” as opposed to “oh god my life sucks so much ;_;”.
This post, I can feel a lot of pain coming through. At least that’s my interpretation. While there’s a shitload of grief and frustration in other posts, it’s usually offset by some kind of bemused irony, some punchline that ‘makes it ok’, in a way. It doesn’t seem like there’s any of that here, which makes me worried.
Then again, he made this tweet yesterday
so I guess we’re okay.
to FRV:
I agree. There is usually some whimsical spin or joke to counterbalance the darkness. At the same time, a good artist doesn’t always have to keep the same style going all the time. Then it would get predictable, boring, in my honest opinion. Like those “police procedural” TV shows where basically the same exact formula is carried out each episode.
I kind of like it when DT writes something that surprises and is slightly different. Even if it’s dark and depressing as fuck. For instance, “drunk thoughts on capitalism” kind of makes you feel like the world is totally fucked and us along with it. That there are 0 opportunities left, except for having a matching blood type / organ compatibility to a future Walton or Zuckerberg. Made me wanna stop drinking just in case I need to sell my kidney in to make rent some time in the next few months/years.
Anyway. In conclusion, 5 stars.
OK that’s at least the second mention of the potholder. Just buy one of those 3M™ brand sticky hooks & hang that shit up away from the stove.
Unless of course it’s just a literary device or whatever. If that’s the case, I might qualify for either the Close Reader Prize or the Get More Fucking Sunlight Trophy for remembering.
At least it shows that the writing sticks in people’s heads.
So hang in there, fuckstick.
i think that’s what our high school english teachers call a “motif”.
or, this guy lives in what sounds like a messy, crumby apt. so chances are that greasy potholder really is perched precariously there next to the stove burners.
cat screaming and getting broiled alive is always a funny visual, even though i like cats.
Being a boyfriend/husband is a customer service job. You are supposed to always smile and make the woman feel good. You must provide what she wants, and if you can’t be very humble and apologetic, and make whatever effort you have to to make her happy. An unhappy customer won’t get you fired, as there is probably no one who wants the crappy minimum-wage job, but it will get you endless admonishments from the customer/boss.
Wow, those girls are pros. Makes me feel ashamed of those 2, maybe 3 times I’ve locked myself in the kitchen after a fight and sworn I’d cut myself with the steak knife (in my shoddy defense, I was drunk every time), then realizing that I’m too much of a chickenshit to manage even a scratch. Shuffling out of there some 30 minutes later or once the booze ran out is miserably anticlimactic, let me tell you.
DT you need saner women in your life. Long time back I was with a woman (classic bordeline personality disorder) who used to do that shit. After the first time (when she said she’d chickened out of taking pills) I took a marker and drew a dotted line on both her wrists. She said “What’s that for?” Told her “So you’ll know where to cut next time you want to off yourself.” She never tried that BS with me again
I’m glad that this woman “never tried that BS” again, but imagine how guilty you’d feel if she did cut her wrists. I know I’d feel partially responsible for her suicide attempt or death. Even a sliver of a risk is too great for such consequences.
Which then enables her to control and manipulate you.
I love that!
DT doesn’t need sane women. He needs worthy opponents. Equals. He loves us crazy very much.
He doesn’t want sane women but not because they’re boring. He just doesn’t want to be anyone other than what he is and those chicks require nothing of him. Not even committal. Not even that he pretends to respect them. You are who you hang around with. I’m not saying some girls are better than others. I’m just saying, he doesn’t want anyone looking down on him so he surrounds himself by people who really could care less. It’s kind of beautiful. A community of their own. It would be interdependent if they didn’t actually need each other.
Meant to post that to another comment…
dude in the picture kinda looks like you
My first thought also.
Yeah let’s not pretend you don’t hold the door open for those chicks. Great post, though. 😀
Seems like sane girls are too boring for DT?
“I just took 30 Tylenol PM’s, please turn off all portable electronic devices.”
That line made me laugh out loud.
Great post, DT.
30 Tylenol pm’s will probably just damage her liver for the long run, but not kill her. Pills aren’t really effective, you’re right. Hell, my best friend tried to off herself with 90 Xanax, and all it got her was a week long 5150. Even the emergency room doc said it probably wouldn’t have done the job even if she hadn’t texted me the cry for help first.
Would letting her die by the worst of tragedies?
No, because making a typo in an uneditable comment section is.
That. Made. Me. Laugh.