So here we start with the explanation for my book title, or I guess the foreword you'd find inside the little cover jacket if you happened to be looking in there. I bet there's also a nice little picture of me posing with my head resting on both my hands looking serenely off into the distance...majestic.
Well, I'm Not Dead Yet:
A Collection of Short Stories
What Have You Just Opened?
Some may say that the
title of this book is morbid and sad. I’m
going to try and convince you otherwise.
“Oh, he must be such a
tortured soul to only be contemplating about his imminent death in his
writing,” some might say as they glance by the cover on their weekly Barnes and
Noble coffee run (we all know you’re just pretending to read). “People need to write more about happy
things, like the return of the Confederate states,” one Southern Jehovah’s
witness might say. “I heard she’s really
tall,” could be the thoughts of Cindy, mother of 5, soccer mom, and driver of a
mini-van. Maybe the only reason you bought this book is because the
shiny cover embossed on the front caught your eye and you just happened to open
it. I’m assuming your thoughts were
something along the lines of, “If the insides are as good as the outside, then
at least I won’t be reading shit about a vampire.” Heaven forbid someone referred you to this
book—Lord knows my mother didn’t.
“Why
is this book about your death then?”
Well see, that’s the thing, it’s not; It’s about my life and the fact
that I’m not dead. Throughout my life I found myself repeating this
phrase through most situations and time and time again, it’s fitting. Can this apply to only bad situations? Of course not. This phrase is as ambiguous as that slutty
girl you knew in high school, it just goes either way. Through all the times, light and dark, I
could always remind myself that my body was still breathing, whether I liked it
or not. Overall, it really means that if
I’m going to still be alive, then I’m going to do something with it. Through all the narcissism, pleasure, pride,
guilt, fear, stress, and pain, I survived.
So
here we go, down into the abyss, as to why I’m (surprisingly) not dead yet.