I live next to a dead man. He died in 2008. He lays there, paralyzed, without saying a word, but I know he can talk. He lays there, invisible, only known by the worms that crawl among him and by his children that cry above him. I live next to a dead man in a small house made of redwood with brass latches that lock me inside. Locks as if I would try to escape. Locks as if I could escape.

It’s funny the amount of stuff I have in here. I don’t need pillows or satin sheets. I don’t need a fancy dress or makeup on. I don’t need anything. My parents spent so much money trying to make me look pretty, but for what? No one is going to see me 6 feet in the ground. I didn’t even have an open casket—not that I blame them. They couldn’t “conceal the deformities” on my face because they’d just “disturb the guests.” What guests? My funeral wasn’t a celebration. “The guests” didn’t give me presents. “The guests” didn’t go home with goodie bags filled with stale chocolate and useless toys that don’t even work. “The guests” only pretended to tear up and repeated the phrase, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I wasn’t lost though. I was right there. I was in the front of the room listening to all the fake goodbyes and the eulogies filled with lies about my life. I wasn’t “sweet like candy,” my smile didn’t “brighten up the room,” and I certainly did not bring my parents “happiness.” All I am is just another statistic, another person who died that way.

I live under a stone. It’s rough and it’s cold and it sits there, motionless. It has my name carved in Times New Roman font. Below my name is a “description” of me my parents chose. I live under a stone, but I still feel things—not things like the blue, puffy dress the mortician shoved me into, but emotions. I can feel the sobs of despair my mother makes when she sees my stone and I can hear her wailing, asking me, “why?”

I think about that question a lot. I didn’t want to die, necessarily. I just wanted things to stop—to fall into a deep sleep and wake up when everything would be okay again, but this is the closest thing I could get to a deep sleep. Nevertheless, I don’t regret what I did. I did what I had to do—not that anyone else should do what I did. They still have hope. Not me, though. I was a lost cause. I was destined to die. That seems hypocritical coming from a girl who took the gun her dad keeps in the top drawer of his nightstand. I like the way I died though. It took all of my pain and all of my suffering and put it in a way people could see. In a way I couldn’t hide.

My parents came to visit me after months of silence—and crazy enough—they came with another little girl “nicknamed after me.” It’s not like her name matters though—or mine. Nothing matters. Not my name. Not my birthday. Not my story. Nothing. My parents named their new daughter to “honor me,” but she feels more like a replacement. A new version of me they can mold and control. If they wanted to honor me that much, they would’ve spoken up. 

The closed casket wasn’t just meant to hide the hole in my head. It was meant to hide the shame and the fear they felt. It was meant to hide me. If I wasn’t seen, then it was almost like I wasn’t there. It was almost like I didn’t exist.

I hope my parents find in their new daughter what they couldn’t find in me. I hope she’s “sweet like candy,” I hope her smile “brightens up the room,” and I hope she brings my parents the “happiness” I never could. I hope she’s not just one of those people who died the same way I did. I hope she’s not just another statistic. I hope she doesn’t end up with lillies in her hands.