"Does death frighten you?" she asked as she sipped her warm coffee.

I replied with a simple "No." Sitting across from the interviewer.

An easy answer to such a complicated question.

"But why not?" she asked so confused for many fear this concept

and that was not the answer she was expecting.

 

Why not?

 

Because I've been there before.

 

First when I lost a pet.

Watched my puppy get hit by a car that sped off like that dog wasn't somebody's world.

A hit and run and I had witnessed it.

Watching my puppy slip away from this world and into the next.

I was only 7.

Death took its first part of me that evening.

 

And Again when death greeted the whole family

calm and collectively

When my grandmother spent weeks in the hospital

before we actually had to say goodbye.

That one wasn't too bad

we got to know him pretty well that time before he robbed us.

 

And Again on the saddest sunday ive ever lived

when my eldest sibling got into a gunfight and the gun won.

Death gripped me with that one clinging to me

as if I was the last bit of oxygen and he were stuck in space.

 

And Again after my first kiss, my first time, my first love.

the same guy killed me slowly with feelings I felt so strongly that had not existed within him.

Death came to me in the form of a human.

Making me vulnerable then taking advantage.

Killing me softly with my own heart.

 

And Again when my friend escaped the world on her own terms.

Not letting death control her time.

She stopped her own clock consumed in constant pain and heartbreak.

I wouldn't fully understand that one for years.

 

And Again when I took my first drink and thought that’d solve all my problems

but really I was just falling into a family pattern that I had sworn all my childhood I would not do.

Out of my mind my childhood ended that day.

Death loved the taste of that one.

 

Again the first time and every time after that my wrists were stained red

due to my own destructive thoughts.

Torn to pieces trying to release something inside but it doesn't come out that way.

He didn't tell me that,

He enjoyed every minute of it hoping that one day I'd let him take all of me.

One inch closer to him each time

giving him the affection he so craves.

I let him feast upon me for years.

 

I died with every experience.

I am not the whole person I was before.

Parts of me have already accompanied death.

So when she asked me if i am I frightened I say no

because I've been there too many times before.

 

Because at the same time that we are all living we are really just dying.

But I didn't let her know that.

 

I replied with a simple "it's inevitable so why be afraid?"

because I couldn't let her know how much of me was already gone.