Something's wrong

When I heard that Kathy Acker was dead, the first thing I said was "Fuck." The second thing I said was also, "Fuck."

It seemed like the only thing to say.

My friend Alex once said that if he hadn't discovered Patti Smith first, Kathy Acker would have been his spiritual mother. It was Alex who got me reading Blood and Guts in High School. This was a true act of love.

Kathy rode a motorbike bigger than Lara Croft's. Kathy was braver than Xena.

Kathy used to write with a vibrator jammed up her cunt. She wrote from the moment of orgasm. Her pleasure spilled on the page.

Before she died, Kathy lost her breasts and became Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.

I am afraid of cancer.

The third thing I did after I heard that Kathy Acker was dead, was to go downstairs to Abbey's and buy all her books. It was too late. There are no royalties in Hades, and you don't need health insurance there.

I wrote to my friend Mark: "Versace I can live without. Di and Michael were just sad, but Kathy? At 49? No. Oh, no."

Some days you walk around in a fog, and all you can think is 'Don't be dead; please don't be dead.'

If there's any justice (and it's not likely), she's gone where the bad girls go. She's sitting in the sun, eating a peach. Emily Dickinson is looking at her with a sly smile.

Goodbye, fretful angel, goodbye King Pussy, goodbye.

Friday, 5 December 1997.
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