If These Are the Last Words I Write, pt III

I’m sitting on the floor in my underwear as the sounds of New York City seep through my window. Black coffee is in my veins and she is on my mind and I am an infinite monkey sitting at my typewriter, pounding out the last words I will write.

Why do I write? 

To express myself and inso doing exorcise (or at least appease for the moment) the demons in my mind. To contextualize my experiences in an artistic narrative and inso doing salve the pain and artificially wrangle closure into existence. 

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, all is vanity. It’s the same as sharing pictures of food on Facebook, selfies on Instagram, or rambling thoughts on podcasts. As if recording and distributing curated pieces of ourselves somehow bestows validity or immortality. And here I thought I was superior to other people. 

You say you want your story to remain untold. I wish I did. I wish it was enough for me to have a human experience without feeling the need to dress it up in syllabic evening gowns and parade it before the public in a pitiful grasp for attention (and what is that except another word for love). 

It doesn’t matter what I write last or what I wrote before. 

Select all, delete.

Write something poetic – one true thing. I’m good at this. Dance, monkey. Get it all out; puke out my guts onto this blank page. Wash away my sins in the blood and ink and rage.

Who is God? 

I know He is, but I don’t know who He is. Is He the loving father He claims to be, or the manipulative sadist I think He is? I’m used to exploring my faith through my doubt, but I wonder if it’s time to try faith again.

He still manages to surprise me with grace. When I’m lost in the dark, He sends women to speak to me and I know it’s Him. These moments are rare and I wait for them, like a dog begging for the crumbs that fall from His table. He says I’m His son, but it’s been a long time since I trusted His voice.

Still, I bow the knee. I know my place, and it is alongside everything else, face down in His presence. I surrender, but I do not trust. I worship, but I do not rejoice.

Jesus loves me, this I hope.

Who am I?

The soul of a teenage girl in the body of an elderly dope fiend. A sad boi, a child of the nineties, born into unimagined privilege, who didn’t join the 27 club like he hoped. 

I am perpetually drunk with beauty. I want to kiss you hard in the pouring rain. I want to do everything on Earth with you. To wrap myself in my wings and feel the salt sea in my hair. I feel everything – blue and the blues, magic, revenge, sex and rage. Acid milkshakes and pink macarons in the neon night. I am the Pacific Ocean I’ve surfed, the hills I’ve snowboarded, the three thousand miles of American rode I’ve driven. I am every movie I’ve seen, every song I’ve heard, every brush stroke my retinas have absorbed. I am the sum total of everything and everyone I have ever loved. Elvis is my daddy, Marilyn’s my mother, Jesus is my bestest friend. 

And Alana Champion is more beautiful than anything I will ever do. To some, God gave ten talents. To me, He gave five. I will do my very best, even though it won’t be enough and I will die in the end. But when I stand before God at the end of my life, I won’t have a single bit of talent left, and say, I used everything He gave me. How good can I make it before my time is up? Just to be a part of this symphony, to get to play a note – however short or off-key. I get to play and I’ll be damned if I don’t drain the dregs of everything I have in me to give. 

Can I learn to trust the process? Man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. I don’t know what I’m doing or why I’m doing it, and I’m not very good at it, but can I trust that as I do it, God is at work doing what He wants in and through me? He wrote the symphony and He is conducting it, and I get the inexpressible, awful privilege of being a part of it. Use me. Use me up. Play whatever You want through me. 

You will, anyway. I don’t have much of a choice. The bitterness and bile creep back up my throat. I doubt I’ll like it (I haven’t liked it so far), but thy will be done. It always is.

Something is wrong. 150 words about God and 400 about me. One of these days, I won’t write any more words about me. It will be as it should be: just Him and us. And we will be heroes, just for one day.

Nearing the end now. It’s too bad there is no clear narrative arc winding its way to a satisfying and inevitable conclusion. That’s alright. We’ll get ‘em next time. Try a final paragraph, anyway, just as a writing exercise. You never know when lightning will strike. Stretch my fingers, close my eyes, listen for the melody line. 

Have all the songs been written? I just need one more. The train is coming and these are the last words I will write. Write.

But I don’t need to. Not because I can’t articulate it or because doing so doesn’t matter, but because I’ve already written them. In every word I’ve spoken to every friend and stranger I’ve met, on the walls of every house I’ve lived in, and every night I looked at the stars and decided to stay. Everything I am and everything I’ve done speaks of Him. Time is the page and what I’ve done are the words. It never would have been enough, but He said it is finished before I began. Words, words, words. In the beginning was the Word, and at the end, too. And what am I? I am free.

J. 

*To avoid a morass of unsightly asterisks, I have not footnoted every reference, but here they are: Leonard Cohen quote, Ecclesiastes 1:2, All I Want Is You U2, Matthew 15:27, Doomed Love at the Taco Stand Hunter S. Thompson, Born to Die Lana Del Rey, The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald, Body Electric Lana Del Rey, Matthew 25:15, Lana Del Rey quote, Proverbs 16:9, Heroes David Bowie, Have All the Songs Been Written? The Killers, Silence Martin Scorsese, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World Lorene Scafaria, John 19:30, Hamlet William Shakespeare, John 1:1

Feb. 14, 2025