Excerpt from "Gutted" by Justin Chin

Excerpt from "Gutted"

I would not mind getting the cancer

that Ali MacGraw gets in Love Story,

the cancer where as you lay dying,

you become more beautiful and more moisturized.

The classic death would be Garbo’s Camille,

but all that coughing and flopping around on the bed

is just so undignified. I realize she had consumption,

but at least Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge 

still managed to karaoke with her consumption.

I certainly wouldn’t want the cancer

Debra Winger gets in Terms of Endearment.

“Come to Laugh, Come to Cry, Come to Care, Come to Terms.”

Oh, just go away already.

The death I would most like

is Bette Midler’s in The Rose.

Where, up on stage in front of a packed house,

I’ll tell the story of the first time I heard

the blues, and as the story winds down,

my speech all slurry and raised to an odd minor chord,

I’ll wonder, Why is it so dark? Who turned off all the lights? Where has

everybody gone?

                                                                       Then I will collapse and die.

My one request for my funeral

is that at no point should “I Believe I Can Fly”

be sung, played, hummed, mumbled, muttered,

mentioned or thought of.

                                  This is how poltergeist activity gets started.

But I know, I know my death

                                  will not kill me.

Rather it is the death of others

                                  that will kill me.