Not The Next Great American Novel

I never said I was the hero of this story, I just stated you weren’t even mentioned in it, not even in passing.

I’m 38 and some odd days, or spare change. You decide which when this is over.

My best friend of two decades plus died two days shy of four years ago. Some days I accept it, on others I wage wars against myself, you and the entire world around me, just to fucking feel something.

Because, every one leaves. I don’t even get the time to grieve, or process. Or whatever it is normal,healthy folk do when both the living and the deceased have to be mourned, all at once.

Oh, my mom told me she had cancer on July 4th of 2024. Almost two years sober. Of the 37 I knew her. And I was so, let me restate that, AM SO fucking proud of her. For standing, and fighting, daily. Every goddamn day. And she would hate that I just said the GD word as she called it, because she was godly.

I say would, because she died 37 days after she told me of her diagnosis. On my least favorite exes birthday. Happy fucking birthday, you scorned no good soul.

I don’t know if it’s harder to mourn those who have passed or those who still hypocritically walk among us under the false notion they somehow walk above us, from a never ending walkway of a soapbox they can perennially peer down at the rest of us peasants.

But I know which group I hope the worst for, those I’ll find it difficult to ever forgive or even sincerely pray for, and those we all know, don’t deserve to know God on a first name basis.

This has been, not the next great American novel. Because one will cease to ever again exist, so enjoy the classics until these school shooters join together, hold hands and cancel the authors who life long ago, canceled first.