John Green and Jay Asher
they are at war
between each other
in an epic battle of epic proportions
to see who can glorify and romanticize
the most terrible and potentially life-ending things
ACT 1:
Jay Asher started first
with 13 Reasons Why in 2007
because why can't suicide and depression
and blaming that on other people
be romantic, huh?!
Well from first hand experience
there is nothing romantic about being so depressed
that you want to die
I was 12 years old
two years after Jay Asher's book came out
and I was in my room
not knowing about the book
cutting myself for the first time
and jesus christ I bled like a stuck pig
Fast forward to seventh grade
three years after the book was out on shelves
and I had my own copy
that I read through in one day
and came away from it with a vaguely
sick feeling in my stomach
Because I saw myself
in that girl
who wanted to die so badly
that she actually went through with it
but what I couldn't understand was why
she felt the need to set up this sick game
where she gave 13 whole reasons why
to her fellow students
some of which she had never talked to
they were each why she had killed herself
like what the hell
And even more so
I couldn't understand why
Jay Asher thought he had the right
to write this book
to make suicide and depression
into this tragic and romantic
and horribly glorified thing
because being suicidal is just so much fun
But what wasn't fun was
jumping ahead a few more years
to when I was 16
and doing online school because of the massive
mental breakdown I'd had over Christmas break
in my freshman year of high school
and I tried to kill myself
And there was nothing romantic
about waking up in the middle of the night
and then in the morning
and having to tell my mother
that I had taken forty of my sleeping pills
there was nothing romantic about that at all
ACT 2:
then in 2012
just five years after Jay Asher's book
it was John Green's turn to fire back
and since depression and suicide and blaming that
on other people was already taken
why John just shrugged his shoulders and
made it his mission to
romanticize and glorify the big C of diseases
CANCER
Because what isn't romantic
about these two dying kids
and so many others and chemo
that makes you puke and strips your body
of its immune system so that a cold
might kill you
and what isn't there to glorify about radiation to kill
the thing that is attacking your body
from the inside out and even if the radiation
does kill your white blood cells
and leaves you wide open for all other kinds of infection
at least the cancer is temporarily under control right
Because even if you lose your hair
and your brain has a potential of being damaged
as well as your thyroid
blood system
heart
gastrointestinal tract
reproductive tract
and bone marrow
just think
an author may choose to make a romance story
around this disease that is slowly killing you
and doesn't that make you feel better
And even though
if Augustus Waters was real
almost every girl and guy within a five
mile radius would probably sneer
at the cigarette that was never lit
because it's all about the metaphor sweetheart
he was just the perfect guy in the book and then
in the movie where the audience was
actually able to kind of not really see the
prosthetic leg that that character had
because hey why just go after cancer
when you can go after amputees as well
go big or go home ya know
And even though
the book wasn't so much about cancer
as it was about this girl
that even though she literally has to
wear a cannula all the time
and drag around an oxygen tank so that she
can even breathe
at least she can still somehow have sex right
and there's no bruises in the morning
because that wouldn't be realistic to
someone suffering from cancer right
This is where you nod along
and try not to think of the
people you know that have had cancer
two of which have died
and just get through the book
because who are you to let the
cute little pastel blue packet of tissues
that come with the book
go to waste huh
ACT 3:
Well god
big kahuna in the sky that you are
you see mam sir holy mother and father
I have never harmed a book before
except in that I dog-ear the pages
I wanted to burn these two books so bad
that it almost physically hurt
like going to the funeral of a good friend
and I saw red I was so angry
and it hurt so much
Well god you see
I have a proposition for you
okay and it's a good one
Well god you see
I'll go out and buy these two books
The Fault In Our Stars
and 13 Reasons Why
and I'll build a great big funeral pyre
and burn them into the ground
okay and then you take those ashes
they're all for you
take them
and give me back my friends
