a collection of debris (a map)

When C visited me last week she asked, "Why do you want to kill yourself?" I had difficulty answering this question because 1) no one had ever asked such a simple yet complex question and 2) her visit came as a total surprise. (C lives over an hour north of Bloomington.)

When someone asks why you want to end your life and that person sits just feet away, you feel like a child in the principal's office: you were caught red-handed, so it's futile to plead your innocence in the face of the facts.

I stammered. Stuttered. I chuckled because my rationale and pretexts for suicide were suddenly lost. My motives for self-annihilation were still there, but the reasons could not be reached and adequately expressed in the presence of someone who genuinely cared about my safety and well-being.

Now that several days have passed since her visit, my head has cleared and I can answer her initial question.

"Why do you want to kill yourself?"

I feel trapped, C. Disappointed. And a refrain repeats endlessly inside my head. A refrain repeats endlessly inside: "This isn't how things were supposed to be, yet this is what my life has become." If I lay the map of my life across this table, can I pinpoint an exact moment or event when things fell apart? No. But on this map I see many contributing factors of my undoing.

Before my parents divorced in 1992, I lived in an upper-middle-class neighborhood in the suburbs. I felt lucky. Fortunate. Unlike some of my schoolmates, my parents weren't divorced and I lived in a nice home -- a nurturing home. It was the modern day picture of white America in the suburbs. Years later I would discover that this "picture" was just that: a pseudo image painted onto a thin and unsustainable canvas. Years later I would learn that a boyhood friend who lived just houses away was routinely beaten by his father. Years later I would learn that my African-American neighbors were subjected to death threats and racist "pranks." Years later I would learn that a trusted neighbor sexually abused young girls -- including my sister. Years later I would discover that mother practically hated father and in 1977, the two were on the verge of divorce until my mother learned she was pregnant with a baby boy -- me. Fourteen years after my birth the divorce was finally consummated and everything I thought I knew was wrong.

Years later I would learn that mothers and fathers hid behind the white picket fences of suburbia and concealed the wounds -- the reality of their circumstances -- from their neighbors. And their children. Perhaps this is why parents instill the myths of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny into their children. Because childhood is nothing more than a series of veils, and as each veil is peeled away, the truth becomes easier to accept. Saint Nicholas isn't real. The Easter Bunny doesn't exist. Your birth wasn't planned. Mommy doesn't love daddy.

Needless to say, my parents' divorce was extremely difficult for me and sister. Mother remarried within a year. Father, whom I had never seen take even a sip of alcohol, was the antithesis of my stepfather. This man, this stranger enjoyed his liquor, and soon after mother began dating him I saw her consume alcohol for the first time. Mother, whom sister and I relied upon for emotional support (we spent at least two weekends a month with father), wasn't there when we needed her most -- a fact that haunts her to this day. She was in love, possibly for the first time, and sister and I had to support each other.

By no means am I blaming the divorce for my current state; however, when I look at the map of my life, that event, along with the illusion of suburbia, certainly carved a detour into my maturation.

And things weren't supposed to be like this.

When I think of my parents before and after the divorce, I don't recall them as being encouraging figures of my youth. I received a dollar for every A on my report card and was promised dire consequences for Ds and Fs, which I never got. I knew in the fifth or sixth grade that college wasn't for me. I wanted to carve my own path, and I knew if I wanted to succeed as a writer or musician I would have to work especially hard. But where was the encouragement? If my parents did encourage me to pursue my dreams it failed to leave a lasting impression.

I don't condemn them for what they were or were not. Several years ago I realized that my parents were adults, human beings who did their best raising two children. Some children grow from the bleakest of gardens yet battle the odds and become successful adults, while others are raised in the lap of luxury and struggle to find their feet.

And C said she had heard my music and read my words. And she said I have potential. I could inspire others. I could become something greater than . . . than this. But I'm tired. I've lost the motivation to become something "greater." I've seen the odds and I lack the strength to battle, to overcome.

So strip me of my possessions.

Bury my body.

Incinerate the remains.

What is there to accomplish? What is there to achieve but an ending?

Success can be humbling but the successful cannot escape their scars, their demons, their wretched reflection.

I look at the map of my life and I see the girl who took my virginity. Rain rapped against the window while she peeled the clothes from my trembling body. In her big, sorrowful eyes I saw something familiar: pain. And I thought I saw a faint glimmer of . . . of love. But I was her tool. She devoured my body . . . a means of escape. Something she could temporarily consume and forget . . . forget herself and her troubled life. But I wanted more. I wanted so much more. I wanted her on my arm and concealed inside my heart. I wanted a mutual exchange of pain, of love. Love. A means to an end . . . the end of something forgettable and the beginning of something sweet. Hope. Love. Acceptance. I'll show you my scars if you will show me yours. And I will accept you. All of you. The ugly fragments. The beautiful pieces. You. But no. (Yet I'm still searching for you, Laura.)

Love is another veil from childhood. Peel it away so the truth becomes more acceptable. The Tooth Fairy never came to you in the middle of the night. Mommy doesn't love daddy. Because love, like god, is something we eternally long for. We wait. ("God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life.") We hope. We want. We wish something could penetrate our very existence and offer something greater than ourselves. But no. Love isn't coming to cool our fevered cheeks in the pitch black of night. No vessel of love is coming to administer an antidote for this . . . this despondency.

I could continue this diatribe . . . I could blame my disintegration on events that occurred months ago, years ago, a lifetime ago. I could accuse my well-meaning parents of . . . of what? I could blame the victim -- myself. But pointing fingers and leveling accusations against the guilty, the innocent and the indifferent will have no bearing on my present predicament.

And this is what your life has become.

A collection of anemic bones and weathered flesh hiding under cotton sheets. Hiding from the day. A body weary from another sleepless night. The recurrent headaches. The routine. This.

(And somewhere, a plane prepares to scrape the skies. To take flight from the tarmac of an airfield. The plane will depart from the face of the earth and soar. Drift over buildings. Landmarks. The faces of the forgotten and the loved. The machine will glide above the globe, casting its shadow on this map. An atlas of human origin. Bizarre.)

xx