From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; personal accounts, years variable

Medium may refer to:

• Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data^[ME1]
• List of art media (plural: media), materials and techniques used by an artist to produce a work
• Medium (TV series), an American television series starring Patricia Arquette about a medium (psychic intermediary) working as a consultant for a district attorney’s office
• Medium, a practitioner of mediumship, the practice of purportedly mediating communication between spirits of the dead and living human beings

See also: Media § Life sciences

• Channel (disambiguation)
• Conduit (disambiguation)
• Media (disambiguation)
• Median (disambiguation)

See also: I am surrounded by ghosts. I wait for my heart to retreat from my throat.

Memory freeze-frames.^[SON] Memory inconsistently frames^[ME2]. Memory frames my mother’s eyes, but not always my mother’s voice. In the memory frame, she repeats, “Thank you, sweetheart,” sitting at her chair. The subject repeats and repeats the phrase. A soft ache. A gentle haunt.                Endlessly.

Memory freeze-frames, but the memory-image has eroded away. I no longer remember Briton’s face. And I don’t remember when I started to forget it. A face comes to mind, but I could be mistaking it for that of another friend. A childhood friend who cheated death twice. One who I did see in the hospital. One who I did fear would die. One who I did hope and pray would not.

Or perhaps they did-do share the same curls. Share the same death face. A repeating haunting image. A blinding-disorienting double exposure between the living and the dead.

For all he meant-means to me, I barely remember his voice. I do not remember his height. His birth date. His last name. But something remains. A gentle haunt. Memory aura photography. Memory has altered the image, according to memory’s needs.^[SON][ME] A halo of memory has formed on the surface of the photograph. An energy distinctly his.

See also: To photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude^[ME3].^[SON][ME] His presence in the photograph is defined by what isn’t present in the frame. His presence is now defined by his absence. His exclusion. His halo. His silence. Forever.

To reconcile, it is necessary that memory be faulty and limited.^[SON] For memory to exclude. What I no longer choose to frame^[ME4]: my mother’s insults. Her ultimatums. Her shrieks. Her threats. But despite my best intentions, the halo of memory remains.

Worthless. Fat. Slob. Bad. They all echo in her voice. Internalized woundings. Bad halos.

Memory, the image that someone chose.^[SON] The image I choose: Briton, alive. Call him Thanatos^[ME5] call him Lazarus, call him Icarus. Call him Death. (He is) Death risen, indeed.

The image I choose: Death sleeping with me in the early morning. When the static rings the loudest. When it clings to the walls. Death in a body warm and alive. With a heart still beating. With lungs and neck untouched. In bed I turn to feel his warmth. His black curls tangled in my fingers. His soft chin tucked into my neck. Death finally happy and safe, locked in my endless embrace.

The image I choose: the subject loved, forever. Both of us occupying the role of subject. Each other’s^[ME6] subjects. Both of us (finally) loved.

Memory is, achingly, the only relation we can have with the dead.^[SON] My relations are faulty, inconsistent. I am surrounded by ghosts. Ghosts that I love. Ghosts that I want to follow.

The desire for suicide is frequent. After the slightest injury, I want to kill myself. The idea of suicide^[ME7] stabilizes me. Saves me.^[RB][ME]

Memory inconsistently frames. Each time I read his mother’s^[ME8] note, I am freshly wounded by some new line I’ve read over. As if experiencing it for the first time. As if forgetting it every time previous. The memory-image that previously eroded away:

“Several suicide attempts”

The memory-image now made fresh. Why didn’t I know better? Why didn’t I try harder^[ME9]? What follows:

“It’s natural to feel, in these circumstances, that you might have changed his circumstances if you had called him more often or said the right words. Briton’s philosophy  was nihilism^[ME10].The reality is that he really didn’t want to participate in life.”

How can I not follow him? What else can I do now but follow him? You shall not kill yourself. Your suicide precedes you ^[ME11].^[MB] You beg me not to follow. 

The tarot image Briton chose when he first revealed himself to me after a long absence: The Fool^[ME12].

“He had several suicide attempts until he finally found a painless way to complete his journey. His logical answer to end his pain was to kill himself. He didn’t do this as a rebuke or to hurt anyone else, he simply saw this as the correct and final solution. He didn’t see his creativity as the worthy gift to the world that it was.”

He dies, inept^[ME13]  at dying.^[MB]

[Sad +3]

Mourning

(From Losing a Friend)

20 hours