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THE THIRD TIME YOU DIED BECAUSE OF YOUR DAD , YOU TRIED TO KILL HIM . YOU PLANNED IT ALL OUT . RAT POISON IN THE SOUTHERN COMFORT . THEN YOU ' D TAKE A SAW TO HIM . YOU ' D MAKE HIM OSIRIS . SPREAD APART . BUT WHEN THE DAD - KILLING HOUR CAME , YOU COULDN ' T MAKE THE CUT . YOUR DAD WOKE UP THE NEXT DAY , LAUGHED AT THE DEAD TASTE IN HIS MOUTH . HE NEVER HELD IT AGAINST YOU . HE KILLED HIS DAD TOO . JUST ANOTHER THING YOU HAVE IN COMMON .

" WHAT ' S BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER ? " IT ' S YOUR DAD ' S FAVORITE ONE AND THE ANSWER ' S ALWAYS DIFFERENT. A NUN IN A BLENDER ? NO . A PENGUIN WITH A SLIT THROAT ? NO . A NEWSPAPER ? NOT EVEN CLOSE . " A BUNCH OF BABIES IN A GARBAGE CAN " HE LAUGHS AND LAUGHS " AND THE ONE ON THE BOTTOM HAS TO EAT ITS WAY OUT . BUT THAT ' S NOT THE FUNNY PART " HE SAYS . YOU BITE , THE FISH ON THE LINE EVERY TIME . WHAT ' S THE FUNNY PART ? " THAT BABY WAS ME . MY POPS WAS THE GARBAGE CAN . CHEWED MY WAY OUT LIKE A RAT THROUGH A CAGE . HE NEVER SAW IT COMING . GODS NEVER EXPECT TO DIE . "

EVERYONE IN THE WORLD HAD SOMETHING HAPPEN TO THEM THAT THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN . SOMETIMES THE THING IS A PERSON . YOUR MOM THOUGHT OF LOVE LIKE PLASTER . LIKE IF SHE JUST USED ENOUGH OF IT , SHE COULD FIX ALL THE HOLES IN THE DRYWALL OF YOUR DAD . LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE , YOUR DAD OUTLASTED HER . YOU WERE HER FINAL PATCHJOB BUT SOME DAYS YOU THINK YOU ' RE JUST ANOTHER HOLE . SOME OF THESE WORDS ARE NOT METAPHORS FOR OTHER ONES . YOU GET TO DECIDE WHICH .

If you want to be a dog, first you must learn to wait. You must wait all day until somebody returns, and if somebody returns late, you must learn to wait until then. Then you must learn to speak in one of the voices available to you, high and light or mellow and thick and low or middle-range and terse. Whichever voice you learn to speak, you will meet somebody who does not like you because of it, they will be wary or annoyed or you will remind them of something or someone else. Once you have learned to speak you must learn not to speak unless you absolutely must, or to speak as much as you feel you must regardless of how many times you are told to stop, or sit, or placed behind a door--this will depend on what kind of dog you want to be. And indeed there are many kinds. It may not feel as though you get to choose, and that too is a kind of dog. Next you must learn to relinquish all control over everything you might wish to control. You must learn to prefer to be led about by the neck on a piece of string, or staked to a neglected lawn by a length of chain. You must learn, once you have sampled the freedom of a life without a chair, that it is better to return and be chained again. Or you may learn that it is not--a fugitive is also a kind of dog. Of course you must learn to love, to love always and love entirely and to be wounded by nothing so much as the violence of your own love. You must learn to be confused but never disappointed by a deficiency of love. You must give up your children and not know why. You must lose yourself wholly in activity; you must never feel an itch that you do not scratch. You must learn how to wait at the foot of the bed and hope, silently, that somebody is drunk enough or lonely enough to invite you up, and you must learn not to show your excitement too much or overplay your hand. If you want to be a dog, you must learn to believe that you are not in fact a dog at all.

WARNING
IT IS POSSIBLE TO SURVIVE THIS BUT NOT UNALTERED

Hugo Simberg, The Garden of Death, 1896

After all, the world is on my side. That is, I’m a part of it. Not separate from it. I walk on the ground and the ground’s walked on by me, I breathe the air and change it, I am entirely interconnected with the world.

According to Simberg, the flowers represent people’s souls, the skeletons are aids to Death, and the Garden of Death is a purgatory of sorts for souls waiting for entrance into heaven. This artwork invites the viewer to consider the afterlife, to take comfort in his or her own passing, and to not fear what happens after the body fails to function.”

“It depicts Simberg’s thoughts on afterlife, which is not run by angels but skeletons who take care of the heavenly garden with a gentle hand, while waiting for more “gardeners” to arrive. It is derived from the medieval belief that the dead sleep in a blooming garden.”

“In Simberg’s garden the humble Death-like figures struggle against harsh conditions; the landscape around the garden has burnt yellow, it is dry and barren. The cherished flowers grow in exotic shapes, slowly, requiring constant care. The black-clad figures love their nurslings. The garden is a place where Death is allowed to realize its feelings of affection. The Garden of Death can be seen depicting the impossibility of this love; maybe the flowers are tender and fragile because they can not handle the love of Death. Love has two faces: one of them is the face of devastation.

You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man or any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: The gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose… That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself? Would you give up the craft of your hands, and the passion of your heart, and the light of sunrise and sunset, to buy safety for yourself - safety forever?

I cooked a steak tonight and was feeling alien. How weird this gross piece of cold raw flesh on a cold plate is and I was thinking I am just an animal with the luxury of packaged flesh and is it human flesh? Like I wouldn't know. We just believe it's a cow but we don't have fucking proof of anything. The knife went through the same as if it was my own leg.

Joan Tierney, August Peaches

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

Click images to be brought to source.

* if i could find it

I am a second child--my brother, Dan, was 6 and a half years older than I was. That meant that he was always better at everything. That was really hard for me, 'cause I was competitive.

I always had him as an example. When I was young, just doing basic things, like learning how to talk. Well, he's my example.

Learning how to--piss standing up. Or--shave. My mom told him he had to do it. She was like, "show your brother how to shave." [Laughs].

Yeah. He also... he also died first. So, I... have that, as an example. In a way.

And--and frankly it makes it less scary. In a way, too. Knowing that he's--done it. 'Cause all the big things I ever had to do, he did 'em first.