My Dead Are Not Yet

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Dennis asked us for 'our dead'. i really don't have any. obviously i've been alive when important people have died. obviously i've had friends, family members, and acquaintances who've died. but none in particular stand out as 'my dead'. Dennis said he meant someone whose death had made a particular impact on us. some of my artistic heroes, like Haring and Mapplethorpe, died while i was alive, but at the time i was too young to notice their deaths or know their art. i can't say that their deaths made any impact on me at all. when i came to know them, they were dead already. their being dead was+is like any other part of them.

there is James Lyons: i always really, really wanted to meet him. there were so many things i wanted to ask him about cutting Todd Haynes' films, especially Velvet Goldmine. and i wanted to ask him about all his own favorite movies. but is James Lyons my dead? naw, i can't claim him.

so about 'my dead', i wasn't sure what to say . 'i don't have any dead' sounds preposterous and most people would misunderstand that sentence, like i've never known someone who's died. 'my dead don't exist' is confusing and weirdly sci-fi. 'my dead are still alive' avoids the question. but 'my dead are not born yet': that sums it up for me.

to be clear about my dead not being born yet, assuredly, i don't mean that my dead are what some call 'the unborn'. my dead haven't yet been [biologically] conceived either. but if i say 'my dead have not yet been conceived', 'conceived' sounds like 'imagined' or similar.

when i imagine my dead, i think of the far future. i think probably of people who will be born after i die. and when those people eventually die, they will somehow impact me enormously.

from the bottom of my arm, my patient nooses and tears dangle in anticipation.