I May Not End As Playfully As Planned

I may not end as playfully as planned.

My body might not be able to keep my soul’s sometimes over-eager promises. Sometimes, I get too tired, too deeply, completely tired, and I give, well, up and out and in.

I know you know that. I think maybe I didn’t until I read myself writing this. I think I thought I owed someone - you, my self - a better, longer, harder fight. Playful to the very end, I thought I heard people saying. Whatta guy! To the very end. But then I realized that that end might come sooner than I planned.

I really don’t want to disappoint you. Or my self, actually. I guess I just needed to see my self give my self the permission I need to let it take me wherever it has to - the pain, the fear, the surprisingly deep fatigue.

I wouldn’t mind, honestly, if the last thing that came out of my mouth was funny (better than drool, at least). If at the very end, at the actual and final conclusion of it all, I made you laugh. It wouldn’t even be so bad if I was the only one, the only one who thought I was at all funny. I mean, under other circumstances I’d be embarrassed or something. But if I was already dead before it became obvious, it could still be possible that I would strike people as funny anyway. “Hey,” they’d say, eventually, “at least he thought he was funny.”

Yeah. A good enough conclusion. At least I’d think I was funny.”