It's a solo flight, living in flesh. We all know it, talk about it smartly at after-show parties. It's a fine art to bring up death over cocktails, but I do it all the time. Which always ends with well so there's that. I watch for the uncertain smiles to fade. That moment when the lips slide down and stick on the teeth. There's no getting out of that moment socially alive, so I keep everyone in the game with questions.
I start with which would you rather as an opportunity to open up the conversation for a set piece I've prepared. In summer I might ask how does everyone like their air.
I'll take a siesta under a lazy ceiling fan any day over sitting in AC on a packed subway tin I tell them, finally, rather proudly. I think I hear the word jejune, but my hearing isn't great. It could be my own inner dialogue. I say dialogue because there really is back and forth. Telling myself to shut up, or for fuck's sake say something. Christ nobody's talking, what have you got on suicide?
