vault backup: 2025-10-21 17:03:44

when-i-die.md

@@ -45,7 +45,10 @@ when i die
 
 I wrote this at about 4:00 this morning (2025-10-21)
 when I couldn't sleep.
-at the time I thought it was very funny,
+
+#### Theme
+
+At the time I thought the poem was very funny,
 it starts out morbid and death-negative,
 then becomes touching,
 then a sharp pivot to grotesque and absurd.
@@ -53,6 +56,8 @@ then a sharp pivot to grotesque and absurd.
 I think now though
 there's something to the ribcage xylophone metaphor:
 
+##### A Xylophone Made from My Ribcage
+
 The quality (musical or otherwise)
 of a xylophone made of one's bones
 is independent of the quality of their character
@@ -76,3 +81,24 @@ To make the speaker's request
 is to make it the responsibility of one's descendants
 to make up for one's own failure to live a meaningful life,
 and to do so while acting as if giving them a gift.
+
+##### Obsession with Death
+
+Repetition of "when i die",
+use of dysphemism ("inch of human soup"),
+and the lack of horror for their request,
+suggests that the speaker is obsessed with death.
+
+The speaker is likely not working to mitigate their regret
+while they still have life to live.
+
+### Notes for V2
+
+Further express the speaker's ignorance and dismissal
+of the difficulty of their requests.
+
+```verse
+when i die
+==just== leave me to rest on the forest floor
+to feed the foxes and fungi
+```