I shot myself. I was an adolescent.

Subsequent problems are a nightmare. You cannot know the horror of it. Even if you think arrogantly, you can. Do not go down that dark rabbit hole. I was being sexually abused. The adult abusing me was the guy who gave me the gun. I tried to do what he said I had to do. I was and am disgusting. I was beneath contempt.

“He got crazy.” People shake their head. Your friends will walk away. No adolescent believes this, but often, the so-called friends who you insist are real — are ephemeral. I am here to tell you that they will walk away. They are not your friends. Cut them loose. You know who your friends are in you gut. Love and friendship do not have to contradict each other. I love my friends. They drive me Miss Sugarnut. Like me, they’re plumbers, truck drivers, delivery men, horse trainers, vivid writers, runaways, washers of cars, members of Antifa, and the diggers of graves. Most writers dig their own graves repeatedly. Around here, families can dig their own family members’ graves themselves. Around here, death is real. Around here, vivid writers usually find one another. The diggers of graves are always silent while digging. Just the sounds of the gravel and the shovel and the clicking of computers.

Yesterday, my family went for a walk. We were attacked by a pit bull. No one even knew a pit bull lived there.

I didn’t want to write this. I wanted it to be far more lame than it was. It’s a game-changer to see your life dominated by the asshole you are. A flaming asshole. The kind of asshole people and pit bulls would like to kill. It is my TAKE on that conflict between me and a dog that no observer can tap into because IT’S NOT YOUR FUCKING FIGHT THAT BELONGS TO ME. TO ME. NOT YOU. HOLD OFF THE HELPERS. They have more pit bull in them that they know about — ambition is a curse — so is stepping all over a life and calling it the act of a friend. How do you draw the line between ambition and abomination. The dog doesn’t know you. He wants to kill you anyway. It’s mechanical. Both the dog and your friends will draw blood. It doesn’t matter if you can see them coming, but life-gets-hard-fast comes to everyone. I cannot say I will not rewrite this. I might. It is to understand what happened. On MY TERMS. Not some disembodied terms voiced on a telephone. I am writing for me. Deal with it. I doubt I will explore it with you in any meaningful way. It belongs to me and public curiosity is obscene.

Curiosity is a club to beat someone with.

Nevertheless, I am the kind of writer who cannot stay still. I wrote one version of this just to see it with different eyes. Not as violent as it was. I white washed it. I made it prettier than it was. I knew what I was doing. I was writing it for you. I am a whore. You can rent me. Slap me. Put your fingers in my mouth. I will suck your asshole and beg to be paid. Guess what money buys. Food mainly. This is a world where there is no satire, and plenty of rabbit holes to jump into. I am the one who killed that fucking dog. I have to live with it. I love dogs. I understand the extent of the pain that the owner of the dog feels today. What was in it for whoever beat this dog until it, too, committed suicide. It was uglier than what I want to admit.

There is nothing like bleeding out as you are laying in the middle of the road screaming your guts out. I was the one who killed that dog. Today, I am weighed down by the gravity of a grief that recognizes how abuse shortens your life, too. Homo sapiens are just as killing as any killing dog.

People whine. I am not telling the truth. Ask the cops. Ask the hospital. Ask the ambulance paramedics. Ask the neighbors who tore out of their houses to help. But why. The writing police do not always know why. It is usually another writer who wants a pound of flesh. Retribution can be imposed by anyone.

I remember drowning out the noise. There was a lot of noise. Today, it feels muffled. 

My neighbors were armed like Fort Bragg. I jumped on the dog. I did not let go. I don’t think this animal had ever been physically opposed by another animal. My neighbors did not shoot. Terriors are abused, too. Commonly. The death of the dog is the waste of a life.

Like mine. The good people who tend to suicide are wrong. The pain alone. There are NO drugs that work. We all know it. Cure is fantasy. Let us go. Life is not always a miracle. Life is not always sacred. Life is not always without debilitating, rabbit-hole-pain. Life is not always an explanation of anything. When I want other lives to meanly burrow into my life, I will let you know.

The dog dragged me through gravel. Taking chunks out of me. Blood spurting everywhere.

A gun could have accidentally killed innocent people. I wrapped my bloody arms around the dog and my fists began hitting that nose hard. I snapped its neck and killed it. I had no idea I had that in me. I call this internal self, my second self. He has the ability to go wherever he wants, fight with whoever he wants to fight with, or stare at anything he needs to stare at. Like death. Straight in the eye. My second self holds no illusions. Cold as teeth.

I collapsed. But I made it to the hospital where I am writing this. Suicide haunts me. Sex haunts me. Killer dog dreams. Being whipped with a whip, naked. Suicide made sense. But not today. Helpers cannot know. They are arrogant enough to think I need their help. I can regognize them a mile away. I hold TIGHT to sanity. I am bleeding from the embedded rocks in my skin. Tight. Tight. Do not let insanity get a grip. I will win this one. It’s the world that’s crazy. I am a survivor. Surviving.