D E A T H

Positive attributes : “It was my favorite cemetery, on my favorite holiday.”

Negative attributes : “I felt a deep confusion and aloneness, an uncertainty undercutting the bliss of achievement and escape. I walked past a funeral — what a strange day to remember life. I didn’t have a costume. I didn’t really have a reason to be here, but I keep coming back.”

—

October 2019 : New Orleans, Louisiana

—

—

Keywords : “Wrought. Crumbled debris. Unusually cold. Tampa girls in French quarter mini dresses. Young, awful men clinking glasses, masquerading as adults.

[…]

Memories tend to overwrite themselves here.”

—

—

Life Situations : “Every time I come here, I play a game — ‘find the oldest gravestone.’ I keep finding older ones. Maybe the dead move to new houses, too.”

—

—

In Reverse : “For Halloween I dressed up as the blue dog to face my fears — something artificially valiant — but felt puffy and restrained. The sublime and the terrible intertwine; the silence of St. Louis No. 3 and the barrage of Bourbon. The uncomfortable realization that I’m not haunted; I haunt.”

—

—

As a Yes or No Question : “Solitude is our fate. What is it, amor fati? The emptiness of merging into something greater, something less painful. The respect for the ineffable. The tendency to romanticize the past to create better blog posts.”

“I think the final answer is no. So I guess I’m free.”

—