i told life a joke that left her in splits.

but she's not very flexible now, is she?

i think she's calling for help, i better run away.

i hope the insurance covers her shame.

speaking of running away, let me tell you about my date

with death. the first time i saw her, goddamn.

no wonder men get boners after they get hanged.

we're the split-the-bill generation, emily.

so we kindly stopped for each other.

(by the by, let's not talk about splitting yet.

life might still be listening.

i don't want her punchline to land

on the joke of my face. it's not insured yet

because, supposedly, my face is categorized under

natural disasters, my nose noted as an act of god.)

so yeah back to the date where death asked me

what do you do? and i said i play the violin

on my wrist with a knife, but she said that's so cliché

what else? so i said i hold a hundred sleeping pills

in the pit of my mouth, but she said that's so boring

i'm already yawning. then i said i wade into the lake

with stones in my pockets, and she said oh,

so you're the one who's afraid of virginia woolf?

i gave up and sighed. death held my hand and whispered.

you pretend to like me when in truth you still like life.

you don't believe in anything before her or after her.

you keep running away from her but deep down you know

that she's the only one you're ever gonna have.

i always suspected that life and death were lesbians

who were fucking behind my back, but maybe

they're just good friends, cry-on-my-shoulder types.

i no longer want to have a threesome with life and death—

this is what nirvana actually means. i pick up life, help her

stand on her own feet, and she slaps me, and will keep slapping me

but it's fine, as long as death holds my other cheek firm.

~ ajay

22/3/2022