The idea of being abandoned is so painful to me that I resist it even when I am running in the opposite direction of my abandonment. I couldn’t feel the shackles fall from my neck, ankles and wrists. I could only hear, “Now go!” But, I was already running and, like a dog on a choke chain, continued to repeatedly asphyxiate myself as I reached the end of my line. “Now go!” sets me free. I bristled because I didn’t get to say, “I’m leaving.” Petulant, foolish, little boy that I am. I didn’t see that you were pushing me off the Amistad and back toward the shore of life, back to the world. Like the Ancient Mariner, I had been the lot in a craps game between Death and Life-in-Death, and having been won by the latter, it had become the only life I knew or expected. That was not, is not, and shall not ever be a life. I feel like a snake that’s just molted and am completely grossed out by the shell I’ve left behind. Thank you, thank you, thank you for telling me to fuck myself and die. Isn’t that ironic? That is where I found my life.
Consolations of the Worst-Case Scenario
