Deathwish 021: Adam
“I killed the old me right there and then”
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1989. Me at 16, that version of me had to die so another me could live. That other me is me, now. Back then, 16 year old me let the music do the talking. The talking was through a Cure song, “The Same Deep Water as You.”
The synths were the clouds above me in my head; they were the sounds of death.
I don't mean that as some metaphor. I wanted to die and the song was what me wanting out sounded like.
What the song is constructed of: guitar, bass, drums and synths. The song made the right chemical connection, took root and made decisions.
“The Same Deep Water as You” was a path, a way to walk forward, a way out.
Sometimes I think I actually went through with it. Sometimes I think I staged the whole thing, just so I could be an actor in my own movie.
“The Same Deep Water As You.”
1989. 16 year old me got up and went to the knife drawer and grabbed the biggest knife we had and held it to my wrists. My hand on my wrist. My arm and the intersection of blade on my pale blue veins.
Dad was there the whole time, a few feet away. Reading the paper.
And then he was there. Don’t ask me how. He leaned in, grabbed my arm, and I let go.
I killed the old me right there and then. I killed him by holding the largest knife in the house up to my wrist.
Me and Dad, we never talk about it. But it's written on every birthday card when they say how proud they are of the man I’ve become.
At the time, the 16 year old me had to agree to terms. I had to get strapped to a gurney, put in an ambulance and sent on a nighttime drive down an empty Miami highway in the middle of the night.
Headed for a month-long stay in a mental hospital, not kicking and screaming. Alive.
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To read the previous installment, "Deathwish 020: Lizzy," go here. To participate in Deathwish, find details here.
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Adam was born in Syracuse, NY currently lives in Portland, OR.