Posthumous Essayist
The first thing you should know about me is that I’m dead, and these writings have been published against my will. My spoiled, good-for-nothing children, agent, widower, or estate manager have scrounged through my personal effects. They’re still bleeding me of money after the embalmers have bled me dry.
But if these are printed and distributed, know they came from my Notes App. Because God willing, I’ll burn or be buried with everything else.
I glue my thighs together on the train, acutely aware of bumping into others. I’d like to give everyone their fair share of space, but people take advantage of that. What would I take? If I weren’t so concerned with politeness, in doing what’s right, or kind?
I’d kiss so many more strangers. I’d let my knees touch theirs on the train.
I get mad reading literature that’s written well. I am an envious person. I’ll never write something that good, because they already wrote it. I’ll throw your book across the room. Then I’ll stand, pick it up, and keep reading. RESENTFULLY.
Something from the earth taste like dirt. Too many preservatives in the food. Write something about that–
Groceries:
lentils
Cheese that lennon likes? I’ll know which one
Curry powder
Coconut milk
Olipop - Orange flavor NO LEMON LIME
I would love to slow dance with you. To hold your sweaty palm in mine, sway with you in time. When moving softly, in the lull of music, does your body stick like an arrow, or break like water?
I’ll press my cheek against your hair–breathe in your smell. When like this, chest to chest, swaying in tandem, will you still reek of desperation? You stand on your tallest tip toes, trying to lead. Trying to be the man. Neither of us takes the first step. We just rock our hips, our feet cemented to the floor.
There isn’t a word to satisfy my hatred. I step on your foot. Smile as you shriek.
They will chop these bits up, add them to my published works, and relate them to my novels. The books will sit on coffee-table displays and collect dust on well-meaning bookshelves.
But if there’s still time, if they haven’t disseminated the worst of it, the most damning, the near complete–please, reader, will you do a dead woman this one favor?
Go Set a Watchman at the door to my mausoleum compartment. I’ll be buried with my diaries; don’t let the poachers excavate them, taking a part of me with them.
I am Against Interpretation of my baser texts, my first drafts, my unfinished thoughts.
Let Me Tell You What I Mean, these are not to see the light of day. Keep them sealed on the supercomputer that preserves my brain, in the file folder that contains my soul.
Be better than Audrey Geisel and don’t sell the movie rights.
