Title is something I'm open to changing - I never think before picking a title, I just write something.
Also this needs to be condensed. Ending is also subject to change, but only if you're going to give me fantastic ideas - no "the ending sucks, change it" cause I'm all out of ideas.
Another thing to possibly think about it overall meaning. Why him? Why this day? Why should people bother reading this? I don't mean a moral, just a point. Currently it is just a show-offy selfish boy being show-offy and selfish. Mind you, that could be okay? Who knows.
Alright, enough rambling, please read now - and I suggest reading the footnotes as you go cause if you're reading them all at the end you may forget what he was talking about.
This may be long, but I’m guessing you’ll be willing to bear with me. Hell, you’re probably clutching these pages to your chest like a recently discovered letter from a long lost relative, terrified to open it[1] but eager to know if the words will fill that slight ache that’s been buzzing in the pit of your stomach, in your eyes on a gray, paperback day, in your chest when you read stories of shipwreck. Actually, I’m hoping you’ll be feeling more than just a slight ache, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.
I suppose some form of explanation for such a well thought out and lengthy suicide note is needed, as I guess this seems out of character for me. Much like that time I spent a good ten minutes defending my decision to buy Cosmopolitan magazine. (For those who are not Mum and Charlie, it was to gain a better understanding of the complex and mysterious beings that are womankind – Not because I’m gay[2] , not because Miranda Kerr was on the cover, and definitely not because of the cover heading: Woman of All Sizes Bare All Inside!)
Anyway, I guess since all I’ve done this year is write poetry for that workshop, and all I did before that was talk about how I wanted to write poetry for that workshop, a poem would be the predictable end to The Lamentable Tale of Ben O’Rourke. Perhaps something riddled with angst, or something so choked up on lengthy words and complicated sounding images that nobody would understand it and unjustly label me a genius posthumously. I could have written a nice suicide poem to a friend like the poet Sergei Esenin did in 1925[3], or I could have been brutal and penned something poetic to sting someone who had hurt me[4] . To be honest, I would have loved to go out like Chris Chubbuck who shot herself during a live news broadcast with the final words: “And now, in keeping with Channel 40's policy of always bringing you the latest in blood and guts, in living colour, you're about to see another first - an attempted suicide.” I don’t have that kind of power though, and I guess I’m not as fucked in the head as her. I’m not doing this because I’m bored or crazy, hearing voices or fearing old age. I haven’t been depressed, institutionalised, molested, heartbroken.
I’m going off track, I’m meant to be saying why I chose to take my final bow like this: a ridiculously long letter. I guess I am trying to avoid my own personal cliché. A poem would be too typical, too me and would induce gooey sentiment from family members who don’t even understand my poems. No matter what it said, it’d be deemed wholly wonderful and believed to be the very essence of me. How could I possibly say everything I need to say, make every upset relative or friend feel better, make people understand my decision in a bunch of lines? I’m feeling selfish really, lazy. I no longer wish to write anything beautiful or clever. What I do want is to have the last word, to be wholly truthful. Keats: Beauty is truth, truth beauty. Ha, and I was trying not to be cliché.
If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know I hold grudges. Not like resenting mum for letting Charlie drink alcohol at age fourteen when I had to wait until I was sixteen[5] , but the kind of grudge where I’ll glower at the guy who, in primary school, told everyone I was a loser, said my shoes were cheap rip offs and later stole my girlfriend of two weeks Sarah Fitzpatrick who everyone knew I’d loved since the moment I set eyes on her. Once a wanker, always a wanker. On that note, please keep these people from attending my funeral: Sam Armstrong, David O’Brian, Leroy Tamaki and James Mullins. I don’t expect they’d show up anyway, but I get the feeling they have gala volunteering, Woman’s Day reading, packed lunch making mums, who would see my name in the newspaper and feel the need to come pray for me and chitchat about what a great boy I’d been and how they remembered me playing soccer with their sons at Saint Pat’s[6] . Also, if you see any Taradale High girls there (most likely in packs of fashionable black lace and sparkles like a giant sophisticated rat) please do not refrain from throwing sausage rolls at them for me. (If they say how “afflicted” they are, how “tight” we were, or mention a class they shared with me – make sure you coat the snacks in tomato sauce before throwing).
We all know funerals aren’t for the benefit of the deceased; they are performed to make the ones who are guilty of living feel a little lighter inside, to give extended family a chance to score free snacks and hot drinks, and to make death, the most final thing of all, even more final. So as this has nothing to do with me, other than my somewhat childish list above, anyone at all can come. Actually, I have a few requests. Don’t be offended if you are not on this list, as if you are reading this, chances are I wanted you there.[7] These are people who might not feel that spark of self importance that makes someone assume it is their right to have front pew viewing: The Indian guy who works in the dairy across from my old work. I feel kinda bad for having never learnt his name. I liked the way he piggybacked his kid around the store, and grabbed me a mix-bag of sours before I had to say anything. Also, a reliever teacher I had in sixth form in February. Don’t remember her name, but she had a dry laugh like a hangover and had the same shirt in four different colours. Kids made bets on which one she’d wear. Anyway, she introduced me to Tennyson and Browning and started my love affair with them, and she was the first reader of Ophelia who made me pity the character rather than laugh at the absurdity of her madness.
And now, onto the main event. First things first: the simple matter of God (the fact that there isn’t one). My funeral = no God allowed. No prayers (you can do those in your head in your own time if you must in order to function), no hymns[8] , no priest, no Hail Mary’s or Our Father’s or creeds. Hire a hall, make a slideshow of photos of me[9] , have some speeches and let everyone say how great I was. Play Because by the Beatles.
Banned expressions: “It’s what he would have wanted” (Unless it was outlined in this letter, it’s likely I would not have wanted it, and I definitely don’t want clichés at my funeral).
“He’d want us to go on and live our lives and be happy.” (Or anything that deviates from that. I don’t want you to be happy for a good while. I want you to be mini Alexanders, sulking in your tents, having to be begged to go back to your normal duties).
“He was a kind, caring, happy boy.” (I am selfish and always have been, and the fact that it’s death by suicide will make anyone who says I was happy look like a twat).
“This isn’t like him.” (Of course killing myself isn’t like me – that would infer that I’d killed myself once before. Besides which, none of you knew I was capable of this, so none of you can say you know what is like me. Truth hurting a little?)
“A funeral is not an occasion for a display of cheapness. It is, in fact, an opportunity for the display of a status symbol which, by bolstering family pride, does much to assuage grief. A funeral is also an occasion when feelings of guilt and remorse are satisfied to a large extent by the purchase of a fine funeral.”[10]
When you find me, hanging like a Halloween piñata, cut me down and burn me immediately. Do not waste time and money on a coffin. Then read The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford. While it is, regretfully, American[11] , it still has many points relevant to us and will show you just how sensible you were in listening to me and not being sucked in by the parasites of the funeral industry.
Finally the why that has been shuffling behind every word thus far like an overeager child in a ballet performance, peeking out the curtain. To be fair, I should have started with why, as in a suicide note it is normally the only element. How tedious for you to have had to read through all my demands, when all you were after was for me to lift the lid and let some light in.
You cut me down, saw me naked, pale and unashamed, a bruise like a band of liquorice caressing my throat. You smelt the urine[12] and sweat and drugs and laid me on my bed anyway, my head resting right by this envelope. Why has your darling done a Plath? You glance up and see the posters. Music is the culprit, you assume. You see the books. Poetry is to blame– he was a lost soul, poets are strange like that and there was nothing you could do.
Do not blame things for it is things that I am escaping. Nothing is real, nothing is certain, nothing is true and beautiful. Everything is in this second and only for us. We are trapped by our skin, our thoughts, our lips – we cannot see or feel anything and we cannot know anything. We’re surrounded by glass, breathing up against it, thinking we’re learning by gazing through the foggy marks but we’re trapped inside ourselves. Everything could be a deceit, a lie, a glorious intricate facade. Why put faith in anything when everything is so uncertain? I lost faith in God because it was illogical. I now see that everything is illogical. Illogical and pointless. Here’s a Why for you: Why do anything ever? Why study literature, write essays? Take exams? Once you’re finished it’s done, gone, and nobody cares that you did it. It is a tiny hair in the head of this universe. Why build up to anything? Why work hard? We all end up the same: “What is this quintessence of dust?”[13]
This last year I have done nothing but people watch, documenting every pointless act, filling up notebooks, and then filling up my head. Spray-tans, piercings, limping in stilettos. Protests, superstitions, multinational billion dollar corporations. Chewing gum, perfume, magic tricks. I laugh at everyone out there, wasting time on pointless things. But that forces me into finding my point, and I come up blank. I eat and wonder why I bother. I read, and wonder if I should be doing something else instead. Eventually I have no choice but to do nothing ever. If nothing has a point and we cannot know anything, then why bother sitting, burning sores into our asses and feeling our heads fill up with the expanding ice. I need out. Now. This isn’t paranoia.
You needn’t worry though, I died happy. Drugged to the hilt and, hopefully, hallucinating. Maybe the packets of Panadol will have numbed any pain from the rope. I don’t know how it works, I don’t intend to practise.
Don’t think I don’t remember. I do. I remember what it was like to get excited over things, to be happy like you or be happy with you. I did appreciate your love, I just can’t shake this feeling that is holding me in place like plaster, and I don’t want to.
I urge you to crack the glass.
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[1] I do plan on putting this in a nice envelope. Sure, I could get one of those brown envelopes from the third drawer down and lick it shut, but do you really think I’m the kind of guy who wants to be remembered as the type to seal their final words in a Bay Wide Insurance envelope the colour of peanut shells? I was going to tear a page out of a poetry book, Plath perhaps – just to be a dick (have my death notes sealed in a poem on death, haha, I’m sure Aunt “Liking-Metal-Makes-You Goth” Judy wouldn’t put it past me) – but then I realised I didn’t want to ruin any books. I’m about to leave this place forever and I’m worried about ripping up a book. Pathetic really, but I guess when nothing seems important in the slightest, why not be selfish about favouring little things? I’ll wear mismatching socks when I go. Hopefully you just pulled this letter out of a delightfully expensive envelope made of thick card the colour and texture of Mum’s duvet.
[2] Although, now is as good a time as any to let people know the truth about me: I tongue kissed Andrew Harper at that Shakespeare Road party two years ago, and felt his dick through the outside of his pants. I wanted to see if I could get gay guys off. Unfortunately I can’t remember if I got him hard or not. Ah, well. I think I enjoyed the kiss.
[3] I loved that line in it: “There's nothing new in dying now /Though living is no newer.”
[4] “Tho you should lean above me broken hearted /I shall not care... And I shall be more silent and cold hearted/
Than you are now.” - Sara Teasdale, Suicide note to her lover who left her, 1933
[5] Kelly got me drunk off Midori and lemonade at Jaggy’s 50th when I was thirteen. I threw up alien blood in the toilet in Jag’s ensuite. After the nap in Kelly’s car I think I hid it well.
[6] Thanks a fucking lot for forcing me into that shit Mum. What a shame it wasn’t as “character building” as you thought it’d be.
[7] I have seventeen first cousins and I refuse to waste the space naming them.
[8] Mum, I have a feeling Aunt Judy will force you to ignore everything I said and demand for the sake of my soul that I have a Catholic funeral, and if my death has left you a leaf banging from branch to branch unguided and unable to be helped, then please let me suffer any hymn but The Lord’s My Shepherd.
[9] Make sure to include the one of me and Charlie as babies lying side by side on Dad’s stomach, grinning at him as if he was God. I look sexy in those stripes.
[10] Excerpt from National Funeral Service Journal.
[11] Most things I enjoy that are American, such as South Park and Jolly Ranchers, are regretfully American.
[12] Chances are I’ll be one of the ones who piss themselves while hanging. I apologise for the inconvenience, but in a way, I think that something as natural and freeing as pissing will have made my last seconds happy.
[13] Hamlet fucked about far too much with his “to be or not to be”. He had it right. We all end up dirt. He should have quit then.
Changed rating to "R" -Stella Thomas
Other than that, I'm impressed 
And also, you basically say this, minus the examples of things you like, directly in the piece.