Love and Goodbye

“Well, okay,” she said. “Goodbye. Know something funny? We’ve really been saying goodbye all along, since the very first time I went out with you.”

Saying Goodbye to Sally
Richard Yates


The long term trend is death, perhaps the only truly unavoidable goodbye. And up until the very instant our hammered anvil takes it rest and our eyes cloud over, we are constantly saying goodbye.

I’ve lived two decades and it makes me almost inarticulately sad to think of all the people who I have said goodbye to, intentionally or not, in that time. My solipsist, human, tendencies make me an unbeliever in their existence, these people who I have bade goodbye to. That they existed before me and will continue to exist after I am gone is unimaginable. In effect, by saying goodbye I have killed over and over, and I will continue to do so because I have no other recourse.

And I’m at a concert surrounded by people I’ll never know, who will never know me, as anything more than that annoying elbow in your side, the jaw that cracked against the back of my skull. Early on, before I’ve even pushed myself into the front and center I loose my balance. My sides slick with sweat from body heat and not comfort zone can’t hold my pants up well enough and I step onto my pant hem, tripping backwards falling into a sea of disaffected people who gaze up at Armenian Gods bringing them the anthem of their disaffection
“My cock is much bigger than yours.”
Scream it loud, fuck the world, and fuck it and its disillusionment and disaffection and fuck it up its ass like the bitch that it is.

But I am not afraid. And in this writhing mass of people who don’t care about me,
who I will never know, or smile at
who I will never get the chance to say goodbye to,
to kill.
In this sea of people who want to beat the shit out of me for fun
'cause I'm hardcore like that
yes in this sea there are two strong arms that catch me under my armpits and pull me up.
I am redeemed. My faith is restored, if only temporarily.

Because I wish I could tell you otherwise but tomorrow I will wake up and I will continue to say my goodbyes. I have no choice.