Brittany Murphy, an Elegy in X

Amber Tamblyn wrote she died like a spider in the shower.

Where does a soul go? Up the wall on eight legs, down the drain?

My son asked me a long time ago  not to kill spiders, so I scoop them in tissue  then carry them outside.  

There she goes across the pavement and into the grass.  Most people are  afraid of them.  Brittany Murphy was my  number one girl crush.  “Mom,” my son  said. “It’s okay.”  My father  would die if I were a lesbian.  

I have this picture of Brittany Murphy  in  underwear;  it reminds me of me as a model.  I used to look over my shoulder wearing  nothing and hug myself.  It wasn’t  about sex. She pouted that way  to hide she was sad.  It was  desperate.  

I  drank an entire bottle of wine the night  I heard she was dead.  I cried until snot ran off the end of my nose and my scars turned red. It wasn’t beautiful; it was stunning. Brittany Murphy looked like my best friend from high school.

The first thing I wrote about  her was a fantasy.  

My best friends often left me for men.

In my fantasy, we danced  in a nightclub, Brittany and me, holding hands, and it was  like the high you get from  Ecstasy.  I could have loved anyone; anyone could have loved me.  X marked  the spot on a map.  Exactly where I’d like my son to live.