Her Note

Trigger warning: suicide, self-harm, sexual assault, drugs

On this, the evening of my departure from this mortal form, I bequeath to my loved ones all that is theirs.  Take what I give you and know that it is the most I could have possibly given.  I give, with this generous heart, the following items to the following people:

To my mother I leave my nervous foot-first birth and the pain of a “husband stitch”.  I leave the scars on your breast from nursing past when my wisdom teeth came in.  I leave a rope of umbilical cord still attached and a placenta ripe for consumption.  I leave my hate for my shape, taken after yours.  I leave the bathroom full of bulimia-vomit and clog the toilet with my purging.  I leave measuring tape and too-small dresses for someday.  I leave scales and weights and crying in the JC Penny dressing room.  

To my father I leave my crazy eyes and bad temper.  I leave holes punched in the living room wall and broken plates.  I leave the TV playing history channel and empty beer cans stacking up at the kitchen table.  I leave your leering eyes on my friends and your racial epithets that you hurl at your doctor when he won't give you pills.  I leave cigarette butts in the flower pots and joint roaches in your ashtray.  I leave the stench of stale cheap beer and the wastebasket of candy that buzzed with hungry wasps.  

To my older brother I leave the Barbie underpants that your friends put their hands inside of.  I leave my sweet, colored chapstick and chipped nail polish.  I leave the boy-smell of body spray and armpit stench and the mellow wafting of testosterone.  I leave my purity ring and my tarnished virginity in exchange for a packet of Lisa Frank stickers.  I leave my ticklishness and overly-trusting manner for you to keep in your bedroom.

To my little sister I leave my collection of girl’s literature so that she will know, once she is raped, that it was not her fault.  I leave her my Hole albums and my books about serial killers and my knife (which she is never to be without).  I leave my razor blades hidden away in the jewelry box I was given by a dead aunt in preschool.  I wish I had something nicer to say goodbye with, but I leave 100 condoms and my best dildo and the advice that no cock is worth sticking up inside of her and risking reproducing our cursed genes.

To the family dog I leave the rays of sunlight that come in through the kitchen window and warm the floor.  I leave the hot air blowing out of the bottom of the fridge.  I leave every ear from every pig and all the cow tracheas she can eat.  The earless pigs so docile, unable to hear the sounds of the slaughterhouse even as they are led up the ramp to their doom.  I leave little rubber toys that squeak when you step on them.  I leave nothing plush, because the dog will only rip it up.

To my best friend I leave my drugs.  I leave every needle I was too afraid to use.  I leave little packets of powder that will be no use to me now.  I leave painkillers, for I will be beyond the reach of any pain.  I leave fistfulls of green and purple buds that smell like your older sister.  I leave pills that never made anything any better.

To my true love I leave all of the chocolate on the face of the earth because chocolate makes you happy and I want you to be happy even when I am gone.  I leave you the flowers that poke out of the dirt in the spring and the red of the leaves in autumn.  I leave a thousand kisses, which should last you the month.

To my favorite enemies I leave the strange guilt you will feel after my departure, and the lingering suspicion that you had a hand in how it all played out.  I leave you victory, at least in this battle between us.  I leave you my ghost on cold nights when you don’t feel safe in your own bedroom but can’t quite place why.  I leave you a strange stillness in the air and the way your home doesn’t feel exclusively yours on some eerie nights.  I leave lights on that you could have sworn you turned off.  I leave the gas on your stove filling up your house.  I leave gaps and chasms in your memory that I took with me.  

To my elementary school teachers I leave what a promise I was, what a smart little girl, what a well-behaved child.  I leave my bright future and love for the written word.  I leave a lost recess because the other children couldn’t stop talking in the hallway and my hate for you in that moment of injustice.  I never forgot or forgave a single punishment.

To the bus driver, who will not notice my absence, I leave the vacant seat and the vague memory of a woman who once was.  It is you most of all that I dread this goodbye to, as you have been the only stable person in my life for years.  Take comfort in knowing I cherished your smiles.  Take comfort in knowing that you have been the one friendly face that I can count on.

And there it is, the sum of me, all I have to give divided among my few fairweather friends.  I see it laid out before me in this great pile of nothing.  I give away these trinkets of myself.  I give away the strings, thin strings, that hold me to this life.  I do not wish for paradise, just that these things I have given you be taken care of and cherished as I cherished you.  I know you will be unhappy with this pittance that is my entirety.