This is the introduction to Aria Swan’s “disjointed essay” What’s the Big Idea?, which we were fortunate enough to be able to feature in our 10th issue of RANK!. It was a difficult piece to classify, and could just as readily be termed a “disjointed poem” or a series of individual poems or a bunch of mini essays or “flash essays” or a string of related, somewhat related, or completely unrelated aphorisms, sayings, thoughts, musings, etc. Whatever you want to call it, though, it does and always will hold a unique and special place in our hearts/archives here at RANK!. Although we’ve reprinted a number of pieces over the years, some of which are hundreds of years old, from author’s long since passed, this was the first (and as yet only) contemporary and previously unpublished piece to be featured in our magazine posthumously.
Aria got her GED at the age of 16, had a bachelor’s in English literature by 19, and had dropped out of a creative writing MFA program back East by 21. She eventually realized that if she wanted to write, that’s all she had to do—WRITE!—it really was that simple. She left the pomp and polish of the Northeast behind, and took off for the dirty South. New Orleans. But even the Big Easy wasn’t dirty enough for her, and soon she found herself in Puerto Rico, on the outskirts of Old San Juan—as she put it, trying her damndest to live a Rum Diary sort of life. Next came Austin, Texas, then Santa Fe, before she settled in on the California coast. She spent her 22nd birthday on the sand in Venice Beach, pinballing between the bars on the boardwalk and the cool water of the Pacific. She would bounce up and down the coast over the next few years, as north as San Francisco, as south as Tijuana, but she always seemed to make her way back to Venice. She said the crazies made her comfortable—they don’t give a fuck who you are, or what you’ve done; they’re going to be shit-ass crazy day in and day out, and there’s nothing you can do about it. She found something soothing about such constancy in a world prone to such fickleness.
Aria wrote things, she wrote things all the time, she loved to write, she lived to write—although I hesitate to call her a writer, because she herself never did. If you’re going to call me a writer, she would say, you might as well call me a breather, a walker, an eater, a fucker. It wasn’t like calling her a waitress, which she often was, because she wasn’t really getting paid to write; it hadn’t yet reached the level of being an actual profession for her. However, if you then tried to refer to her as an aspiring writer, she was likely to laugh right in your face: Are you telling me I don’t yet know how to write? She thought it was silly that something so personal and soulful should be defined by its monetary aspect or by the opinions of other people. My writing doesn’t change just because someone all of sudden wants to pay me for it, she would say. I’m going to write whether you like it or not, whether anyone wants to buy it or not. I’m going to write, just like I’m going to breathe, like I’m going to walk, like I’m going to eat, and like I’m going to fuck. And you must be silly to think you have any say in it.
Aria had the understanding and emotional proclivity for social media that only comes with having grown up alongside it, having progressed from adolescence to adulthood at the same time that the medium itself came of age. She wasn’t old enough or mature enough yet to realize the dangers of publicizing your personal life, nor was she young enough to have a barrage of cautionary tales to learn from. No, she herself was the cautionary tale. Time and time again, she proved herself to be the cautionary tale. From Friendster to Myspace to Facebook, and the incessant need so many of her “friends” had to describe the things they wanted to do to her, despite the fact that they were in their 20s, 30s, 40s and she was only 14, 15, 16, showing up at her school, her job, her home, with the cure-all for any and every struggle she could possibly be going through, the remedy for her family troubles, her work troubles, her school troubles, the indisputable panacea for all her woes—their dicks! It was always their goddamn dicks! And the holes they wanted to put them! But by the time Twitter came along, and brought with it an emphasis on the written word, she was an old hand at the whole thing, at the tender age of 20. And then when Instagram came out a few years later—well, by that time she was a goddamn pro.
Aria grew up playing soccer. She was good, but didn’t have a real passion for it; her skill level was the simple result of someone fit and coordinated having done the same tasks for so many years. She would later describe this as her parents’ one consistent attempt to atone for what was an otherwise pretty consistently shitty upbringing, coupled with her almost desperate need to believe that her parents weren’t really as shitty as they sure seemed to be. I mean, her mother almost always took care of the snacks for the game when it was their turn—who cares if the other kids always complained that they smelled like cigarettes. And her father attended her games almost religiously—who cares if he was usually somewhat drunk and had been asked to leave more times than once. Aria played all the way into high school, continuing for quite a few years after any remnant of a real desire to do so had vanished, which she would later attribute to a subconscious/almost-kind-of-actually-conscious desire to retain one of the only links to normalcy her family had and avoid the unpleasant familial realizations that quitting would have likely brought to light. However, her freshman year of high school would be her last, introducing her, as it did, to the catty cruelty of femininity and the butt-hurt nastiness of masculinity, which she would come to know all too well in the years to come. Apparently the varsity girls thought her blue hair and septum piercing were obvious evidence of the fact that she was a slut, a skank, a little bitch, an ugly whore, etc., which was very similar to the terms the varsity boys used to describe her when she refused to let them see her tits, or finger her behind the bleachers, or fuck her in the backseat of whatever type of car their parents had bought them.
Aria loved music, and always regretted the fact that she couldn’t sing a lick and hadn’t ever taken the time to learn an instrument. If only I had started when I was 13, she would say, knowing full well that the only way to stop herself from expressing this sentiment for the rest of her life was to just go ahead and fucking start already. She had about a thousand favorite songs, a new one just about every time she talked about it—all of them, though, came with one reservation or another. She said she had been searching her entire life for the perfect song, her most favorite song, a song that she could enjoy without reservation. But since she couldn’t just sit down and make the song herself, she was doomed to wander the world in search of a perfection that might ultimately prove impossible (her words, not mine). She loved Ben Folds Five’s “Brick,” which she first heard when she was 14, but after about a year couldn’t listen to without crying. She also loved “American Music” and “Life Is an Adventure” by the Violent Femmes, both of which she preferred from their live album. If only the former had been praising a musical distinction other than nationality, and if only the latter had been about a girl instead of a boy. Alkaline Trio’s “Radio” was another one of her favorites, which she admitted could have been about any number of her relationships. Now, if only she could find a boy who was as pleased and eager as she was to call it “their song.”
Aria got her first tattoo at 15—a pacifier with a safety-pin through the tip of the nipple, on her left inner thigh. The first tattoo she truly regretted at 17—a pink skull-and-crossbones on the back of her neck. The first tattoo she was truly proud of at 21—a Rumi quote on her right forearm: “never lose hope, my heart. miracles dwell in the invisible.” And her last tattoo at 24—a red heart on the knuckle of her left middle finger. With a slew of tattoos in between. A Dylan Thomas quote on her left forearm: “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Fireworks shooting up her back from her tailbone, and exploding into a haze of glowing clouds just below her heart. A black raven on her left hip, made from the word “NEVERMORE.” In brilliant colors on her right hip, the hugging kids from Shel Silverstein’s “Hug o’ War.” Etc. Etc. She said she remembered being so adamantly opposed to tattoos when she was younger. She saw her body as this beautiful vessel of such perfection and limitless potential, and she wanted to keep it as pristine as possible. Why permanently disfigure something so perfect? Why willingly mutilate something so wonderful? What could be worth remembering or commemorating to the point that her memory alone wouldn’t be good enough? But after her first abortion, that all went out the window. Like the goddamn baby with the bathwater. She realized that sometimes you just have to embrace the mistake. You can’t avoid them all, and it’s a fool’s errand to try.
Aria’s What’s the Big Idea? was the first piece of hers that we ever published in RANK!; however, she was actually supposed to have a short story in RANK! #7. She pulled it 3 weeks before we went to press, though, about a week before she died. I didn’t think anything of it at the time—the same thing had happened twice before. The first time it was a group of poems, the second time another short story. She didn’t think they were good enough, didn’t think they were ready, didn’t want THAT to be a part of her legacy. Instead, she always wanted to focus on her longer pieces, her novels—one of which was actually scheduled to be published by Laurent’s Librairie (our current publisher) once they were finally up and running (which, unfortunately, didn’t end up happening for about another year). When Alyssa Laurent told me that Aria had pulled out of the deal, though, at about the same time, and had asked that she delete all copies of her works, again about a week before her death, that’s when I started thinking. And then when I heard that she had pulled a similar move across the board, asking just about everyone she had ever sent stuff to to please delete it, that’s when I really started to wonder. And when it then came out that she had also wiped/smashed her computer, set fire to all of her own physical copies, deleted everyone one of her Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Etc. accounts, and petitioned each service to remove all reposts/retweets/re-etc. on copyright-infringement grounds—all in the weeks leading up to her death—well, that’s when the authorities took notice too.
Aria was a drinker. She was willing to try just about any intoxicant (under the right circumstances), had used all the major drugs, your cannabinoids and opioids, your hallucinogens and stimulants (often under the wrong circumstances), and wasn’t necessarily opposed to partaking in most of them again (circumstances be damned!). But first and foremost, she was a drinker. She could take down a pint of rum no problem, could finish off the better part of fifth of tequila with ease, and had more times than once given a handle of whiskey a solid go. She preferred to keep it a little lighter, though, if at all possible. Vodka-tonics, whiskey-cokes, Long Island Iced Teas—sure. She could drink more in a night than she could remember. But her go-to drink was beer. And again, preferring it a little lighter—your Mexican beers, Corona, Pacifico, Modelo Especial. She liked the idea of being able to drink from noon till 3 in the morning, and still have a decent idea of what had happened that day. Plus, she didn’t really go in for the flavor of your more full-bodied beers. She’d still drink them, for sure. But she had the habit of sticking a piece of mint gum under the tab of the can, around the neck of the bottle, on the rim of the glass—which to her credit did do a pretty good job of making just about any beer taste much closer to mouthwash than most were comfortable with. And so during a night of drinking, it wasn’t uncommon to hear someone shout out, “Goddamn it Swan!” to which she would then justifiably respond, in similar screeching fashion, “Don’t drink my goddamn beer!” or at times, less justifiably so, “Don’t leave your goddamn beer for me to drink!”
Aria was probably most known for her tweets. Pithy expressions that hit home and could cut you to the core. One a day—for sure. Four or five—no problem. And some days upwards of 15 to 20. With her, it wasn’t a matter of effort, but more of necessity, a compulsion. She described her head as a jumble of ideas, a factory for knowledge, and the only way to quiet it down and keep the machinery running smoothly was to throw the product out into the world and let it live a life of its own. “I’m constantly burning bridges behind me, just to make sure I keep moving forward. #nolookingback” “A day at the beach & a bottle of rum won’t solve any of your problems, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. #dontworrybehappy” “ART : it’s a slippery slope from inspiration to escape to complacency and a life lived vicariously instead of honestly. #lifeisforliving” Her tweets were favorited and retweeted tens of thousands of times by her hundreds of thousands of followers. But she was always very reluctant to accept this as genuine, and was very skeptical about the sincerity of such praise. She therefore had a tendency to periodically test her followers with what she considered inferior products, words strung together in an ignorant and nonsensical manner, horseshit plan and simple. “You can’t win if you don’t play, and you can’t play if you ain’t getting laid. #niceguysfinishlast” “I bought a badass hat today. Yea!!!! #newcutehat” “The buffalo made me do it. The buffalo’s name was Theodore. #theodorethebuffalo.” And if the numbers were too close, if her followers seemed to support the junk just as much as the gems, if it seemed people were favoriting and retweeting things for no other reason than that they had come from her, no thinking, no discerning, no appraisal, she would often delete her account and start from scratch. She had gone through more than a dozen usernames in this fashion—@AriaSwan, @AriaSwanWrites, @AriaSwanWrithes @AriaSwanLives, etc., etc., until her final one, which was left without a single post, @AriaSwanDies.
Aria was wild at heart, with a restless soul. She saw life as basically one chance after another to try something new. Sure—I’ve never done a speedball before. Why not—I’ve never been to Tucson before. Yes, please—I’ve never fucked 2 guys at the same time before. Hell yeah—I’ve never been with 3 girls before. Stripping—okay. Nude photos—sounds fun. Sex tapes—yeah, alright. She figured most things were worth trying at least once. Although when it came to the subject of actual prostitution, she was a little more reserved. She readily admitted having been propositioned more times than she could recall. And she would freely relate having once tried to basically trade sex for a free car. It was while she was working at an upscale bar on Abbot Kinney in Venice. The guy was in his early 50s, and was a regular at the bar, coming in 2 or 3 times a week. He wasn’t very subtle about wanting to fuck her, and she thought it would be fun to see if she could get a car out of the deal—she’d never attempted anything so grandiose before. The “courtship” period lasted about 2 months, during which she let him take her out a dozen or so times, regularly mentioning how tough it was to get around the city without a vehicle, how grateful she’d be if someone could help her find a good deal, etc. The flirting was heavy, and there were a few kisses—but that was it. She held her ground, and kept him dangling on the line until he finally broke. After dinner one night, he told her he had a surprise for her back at his house. She had refused to go home with him every other time he’d suggested it, but she could tell this time was different. She agreed, and when they got there she saw a cream-colored Mini Cooper waiting for her. Her plan had worked, but she wasn’t nearly as happy about it as she thought she’d be. She did end up letting him fuck her that night, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually take the car. She said the idea of actually going through with it made her feel sick to her stomach. Which does shed some light on her feelings about prostitution, although doesn’t really address whether or not she’d ever done it before.
Aria could put on Modest Mouse’s “So Much Beauty in Dirt” three or four times a night, each time enjoying it like it was the first time she’d ever heard it, and singing along with an appreciation for it like it was the only song in the world, although switching out the second-to-last line, which she hated, with one of her own composition—“Playing life we all get to ask why…”—which she felt really brought the song home. She had shackles tattooed on her ankles—the right labeled “REASON,” the left labeled “PASSION.” She loved Joan Jett’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me.” If only less of the wrong kind of guys throughout her life, and more of the right kind, had wanted to touch her “there” and actually had the nerve to just go ahead and do it. She had a watch face tattooed on her left wrist, but instead of hands telling time it simply said “now.” “My Life to Live” by Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards was another one of her favorites. Now, if only Tim Armstrong, who was featured on the song, had been a woman or gay, to add some male names to the all-female list of past “loves.” She had a lacy garter belt tattooed on her right thigh, which had a big bow on the outside, but was held together along her inner thigh by only a single thread. And if she were still with us today, I bet she’d play “American You” by Yelawolf over and over again, to the point where you could go years without ever wanting to hear it again.
Aria’s death and the ensuing months were a very confusing time, tumultuous yet tight-lipped, to the point where we weren’t even sure we were going to be able to publish What’s the Big Idea?. There was initially some debate/concern about whether her death was an accident, intentional, or something much more sinister. And seeing as how this disjointed essay was pretty much the only thing left of hers after she pulled her Kafkaesque flamejob and tried to burn the whole of her legacy to the ground, the authorities were quick to confiscate it and reluctant to release it. They even brought in A——, her longtime on-again-off-again boyfriend/just-plane-male-friend, since it was at his house that the notebook with these little insights scribbled in it had been left. He told them what he knew, that there was just as good of a chance that she knew she had left it at his house as didn’t know. Yes, she did often carry the notebook with her, but was just as likely to leave it at home, or any number of other places, and to simply scrawl down her notes on scraps of paper and tuck them away to be transferred into the book whenever she got around to it. And no, she had never asked him to burn it at the end like the rest of her stuff.
The injunction was in place for about six months before the authorities determined the notebook to be of no significance to the case and finally released it back to A—— to do with what he wanted, as there was no actual indication that the book was Aria’s, no name written in it, no signature, nothing. However, by that time, A—— was having reservations about letting the thing be published at all. And as he struggled with what it was Aria would have wanted, especially considering that she had tried to destroy everything else she’d ever written, RANK! #9 came and went, and it started to look like the same was going to happen with RANK! #10. But, with the new year, and a little more water under the bridge, his concern softened a bit and he thought what the hell. Aria was gone, and she wasn’t coming back, and the chances that she had just forgotten about the thing and would have wanted it to be burned were probably about the same as her having spared it intentionally and actually wanting it to be published—which, with A——’s help in conceiving/designing the puzzle motif, we were more than happy to facilitate in our 10th issue.
Aria wasn’t one to label herself, particularly in the political realm, as she had an almost allergic aversion to the “grand political conversations” that tended to follow—which wasn’t out of any sense of propriety or politesse on her part, but rather due to the severe repulsion she had towards dogmatic ignorance. Her general outlook on such discourse fell somewhere between “I don’t have time for that bullshit” and “even if I did, I’m sure I could find something better to do.” Yet despite her abhorrence, and probably actually in some sense as a direct result of it, she often found herself being drawn in, pulled in, indignantly dragged into these politicized exchanges. Charges of indifference, irresponsibility, immaturity would be hurled at her in outrage. How can you be so glib, so callous regarding matters so important, so imperative? You can’t just sit on the sidelines, you gotta pick a side! Republican? Democrat? Capitalist? Socialist? If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything! And although she did often manage to distance herself and simply walk away, there were certainly times when she didn’t, and she’d get swept up into an argument she didn’t want to be in, by a person she didn’t want to argue with—a person she couldn’t argue with. You tell me what side to pick, you tell me where to draw the line, what side of the line to stand on, and why, and I’ll do it, tended to be the gist of her typical retort, which would then be followed by a list that seemed to just bounce off the glossed-over eyes of her “philosophical combatant”: economic liberal, fiscal conservative, libertarian, minarchist, individual anarchist, egoist anarchist, anarcho-capitalist, anarchist without adjectives, goddamn individualist plain and fucking simple. And when the debate would then still be pursued further, as it often was—blind conceit being a most intransigent force to contend with—she would invariably prove herself much more knowledgeable about political philosophy than those professing to care so much about it, and thus show that sometimes passion isn’t much more than a veil for ignorance.
Aria hated politics as typically exercised and discussed in 21st century America— bombastic ideologies, pompous posturing, grandiose soliloquies. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have concrete opinions on specific topics, nor did it mean she wasn’t willing to discuss them if all that other nonsense was left at the door. Rape culture & victim blaming: Yes, rape is definitely, always, absolutely, unconditionally, etc. wrong and unjustified and unacceptable and reprehensible etc.—just as is murder. But I wouldn’t honestly expect to walk down the street in 1980s’ downtown Beirut and make it back alive. Educational subsidies: Yes, I’d love to go to college for free. But unless the professors are actually giving their lessons and lectures away without any sort of payment, that education is categorically not free, and it’s delusional to think it is. Voter ID laws: Yes, everyone living in a democracy should be able to vote should they choose to do so (including felons!). But it’s certainly not unreasonable to assume you may have to “jump through some hoops” to provide some proof of who exactly it is you are (e.g., a government-issued ID card—which if you honestly can’t afford it is honestly fucking free), just as you have to “jump through some hoops” to register to vote in the first place.
Aria was one of the few people who would randomly get off the bus early, and do so somewhat regularly, just because sometimes getting home from work as soon as possible wasn’t as worthwhile as stopping at the earlier liquor store and using that extra mile-and-a-half walk to polish off an entire 40 of Olde English.
Aria’s name was often a topic of conversation, with people either complementing her on its originality or ridiculing her for its unusualness. Her response to the former was typically something along the lines of, I can’t really take a complement for something my parents did. Whereas with the latter, she would simply bring up the fact that their own names—Rebecca, Jennifer, Samantha, whatever—were almost certainly to be seen in the eyes of future generations as names reserved old people, much like her contemporaries viewed Esther, Agnes, Edith, etc., whereas the unusualness of her name almost guaranteed that this would never happen for her.
Aria loved dogs, and had pretty much had one by her side since infancy: through childhood it was Frida the fluffy gentle giant, followed by Luc the German Shepherd through adolescence, and then Lucy the scrappy beagle/hound mutt from New Orleans to Puerto Rico to Venice Beach. It was actually Aria who first penned that now all too often erroneously quoted sentiment—“I’m suspicious of people who don’t like dogs, but I trust a dog when it doesn’t like a person”—contrary to what the internet and all the Bill Murray imposters in the world would have you believe.
Aria certainly wasn’t the humblest of people, and could toot her own horn like Miles fucking Davis. She did, however, have an intense aversion to being showered in unwarranted praise. One of the more common instances, in her eyes, being the title of “well read,” which people were often eager to ascribe to her, to which she would invariably reply: I’ve only read a lot of a very few, more than a little of more than a few, and very little of a lot—just because that’s more than you, though, doesn’t mean I’m well read.
Aria tweets: “Be wary of always stopping to smell the roses. Life, having much more to offer than only roses, might just pass you by. #fuckcliches” “The one good thing about #psychoanalysis is that we've already gotten it out of the way, and now never have to deal with it again. #thankgod” “’What was I doing?—I was having an #existential #breakdown, indulging in solipsistic reverie’—she chuckled to herself (in response to herself)”
Aria had a big dumb butterfly, in bright stupid colors, tattooed just below her left knee. “ROCK N ROLL” was scrawled in black ink, almost haphazardly, on the outside of her right arm, just above her elbow. And running a few inches down the inside of her left wrist was a closed zipper, an oval pendant dangling from its pull-tab, “later” etched into it in the same font as the “now” on the face of the watch tattooed on the opposite side of her wrist.
Aria loved “Girlfriend” from the original Modern Lovers album, if only the Cezanne paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston weren’t so bucolic and actually made her feel something. She also loved Yelle’s “Amour du Sol,” but wished the lyrics matched the music more, and had a bit more substance to them. Another one of her favorites was the Teddybears’ “Punkrocker” featuring Iggy Pop, if only it didn’t remind her, uncontrollably, of the guy she had based the girl on in the novel she wasn’t ever able to get published.
Aria proudly referred to herself as a sexual fiend. She loved sex, devoured sex, slaughtered sex. And yet there were still times when she would try to see how long she could avoid any and all sexual contact—no sex, no masturbating, no orgasms, nothing, neither by herself nor with anyone else—with an ultimate goal of making it to 44 days (which she had come up with after watching 40 Days and 40 Nights as a young teenager). On her first attempt she had made it to 43 before caving and banging a dude at a Halloween party. And every subsequent attempt, no matter how serious her intent, had ended in a somewhat similar fashion. Either she’d end up fucking someone, or she’d just finally say “Fuck it” and finger herself, or she’d wake up in the middle of the night in the middle of a wholly unintended orgasm. And so you’d always find these little groupings of tallies on her walls—some marking off only a handful of days, most somewhere in the 20s and 30s, none, though, ever making it to that elusive 44.
Aria was amazing. Hands down, she was fucking amazing. One of the best women I’ve ever met. I want to use the word “perfect”…but I’m not exactly sure how to in Aria’s case. She was kind of fucked up. Definitely. Certainly. Undoubtedly. Just like we’re all kind of fucked up in the eyes of others. She could break your heart and make you fall in love with her all at the same time. And have nothing but a shrug to offer in explanation: “I don’t fucking know either.” She could write a verse, a paragraph, a page that would give you chills, give you hope for humanity, and then she’d burn it right in front of your eyes, leaving nothing but the crumbling ashes of memory to remember it by. She could take off for days, weeks, on one occasion even months, without giving any notice, without offering any updates, and then just show back up out of nowhere. No warning. No explanation. Giving you nothing but a kiss and the sincerest, most genuine profession of love you could ever hope for: “You know I love you so fucking much.” And if that’s not some sort of perfect, I don’t know what is.
Aria was a “method” writer. She would get into the heads of her characters, her narrators, she’d dwell in the tone and emotion of a scene before ever attempting to write it. Music was always a big part of setting the mood for her: if it was joy she needed to feel she’d listen to The Bouncing Souls or Lily Allen or Kate Nash, for sorrow it could be Nick Cave or Tom Waits, and for outrage/inspiration she’d blast Rage Against the Machine, etc.—sometimes for days on end before ever writing a single word. She would go for walks, for two, three, four hours sometimes. She’d polish off a 40 or two along the way, or a pint of whiskey. She’d return to the house drunk and bleary-eyed, having spent the last hour or so crying her eyes out—if such was what she felt the story required of her. She even once spent a week and a half in a shitty motel on the outskirts of Reno just to try to capture the right flavor of loneliness and despair that she felt one of her characters deserved. Aria didn’t just write her stories, she lived them—the good times and the bad, the rapture, the hysteria, the filth. And she readily admitted that she sometimes had a hard time distinguishing her real life from the fiction: With so much honest emotion involved, it can be hard to draw the line.
Aria took a lot of abuse online—which it turns out is unfortunately just part of the game now. She couldn’t post a poem or a musing without getting called a dumb bitch, a shitty writer, a worthless gash, or some other glowing commendation. And she couldn’t post a picture of herself without getting far worse—usually for days and days afterwards. She said that if she were to post just one picture a week, she would literally get called a slut by one asshole or another every day for the rest of her life. She could take the writing “criticism” without batting an eye. Shit, people had said similar things about Hemingway, Silvia Plath, and David Foster Wallace. But the comments her pictures often inspired made her glad she didn’t have loving parents whose hearts would have surely been broken. You’re too fuckin fat. Too fuckin thin. You’ve ruined yourself with all your trashy tattoos. Show me your tits. That sweet ass of yours. Why the hell are you showing so much skin. You’re a slut. A whore. A skank. Bitch. Cunt. Hoe. I want to fuck your brains out. Bust that pussy. Tear that ass apart. Choke on my dick. My big cock. Choke to death on my cum. I hope you die. Get AIDS. Cancer. Ebola. I’m going to kill you. Murder you. Your dog. Your boyfriend. Your whole fucking family. Die! Die! Die! I hope you fucking die you stupid fucking whore! Aria could have spent multiple hours every day deleting comments and blocking followers—the abuse she had to deal with was that persistent, that pervasive. And she would say that it didn’t bother her, that she was okay with it, that she didn’t let it get to her. But it’s honestly hard to imagine so much blind, unrelenting negativity not taking a serious toll on a person.
Aria had an innocence to her. An outlook on life that the world was a decent, brilliant, amazing, place. Her benefit of the doubt was given to more shitheads than most would have allowed. Her drunken walks ended, more times than most would be comfortable with, with her waking up at the beach, on a park bench, under a freeway overpass. Her words were more intimate than most would have been willing to admit, her voice more unapologetically familiar, her presentation more enthusiastic and openly welcoming. It was an unshakable, gut-wrenching innocence she had, and the dismissive shrug she would toss off when you tried to caution her about the everyday evils of the world carried with it such a sense of personal understanding that your heart would break for the girl, and any further argument you could possibly offer would wither away as ignorantly, and categorically, irrelevant.
Aria had the lucky misfortune to have accrued such a popularity online that she was never wanting for cyberstalkers—having at any given time far more than she could realistically keep track of. It seemed as one asshole grew tired of harassing her and moved on to the next girl, there was always another creep eager and willing to step up and take his place. “There’s nothing like pure unadulterated anonymity to bring out the rapey side of a society. #moderntruths #aintprogressgrand” The “cunts” “sluts” and “whores” would proliferate the comments and replies of every post she made, hurled at her by usernames she couldn’t help but familiarize herself with due to sheer attrition. The rape threats, the death threats, the threats to ruin her life and the lives of those she cared about most—“Gonna throat rape you whore til you cry enough to kill yourself” “Gonna fuck that tight ass of yours soo hard your tears wash away all that slutty ink” “100% gonna to rape/murder you, but not before rape/murdering everyone you love and making sure they know your shitty cunt writing is the reason I’m doing it”—the intensity of abuse was mind-bogglingly irrational, and practically unimaginable to the uninitiated. “It’s refreshing to see people so passionate about poetry that a bad verse warrants death by anal rape #pooremilydickinson #suckstobebukowski” It was the attention of a handful of dedicated “fans,” though, that really tested Aria’s emotional mettle. Stalking her from one platform to another, one username after another. Sidestepping any attempt to block them by creating one new account after another, emboldened by the personal attention they had elicited in getting blocked by her, and letting her know who exactly it was they were with one repeated signature or another carved eventually into one of their comments—“Your boyfriends back and your gonna be in trouble” “You cunty sluty cunt slut whore” “!!xxXxx!!”—displaying a frightening level of dedication. “Repetition may be the key to success, but doing the same thing over & over & expecting different results is the definition of insanity. #fun”
Aria had the phrase “Heroes never live” tattooed on her left side, just above her hip, and on the right, “Legends never die”—both in flowing letters, surrounded by swooping flourishes. Above each, along her ribs, was a red arrow pointing to her breasts, the tip of each placed right where the flesh turned soft and pillowy. And on her left temple she had a small black flowery-geometric composition of her own design, which was in line with a delicate piece down her sternum and patches on the back of her right hand, her left knee, and the top of her right foot—the motif zigzagging its way down her body like a personal bolt of lightning.
Aria was always one to put on a brave face, shrug off adversity, smirk away misfortune. “When the world shits in your mouth, the weak swallow, the brave spit, but the smart chew away with a shit-eating grin. #gobblegobble” But there are some situations that even the strongest can’t laugh off. And what she was going through with one of her “fans” in her last few months unfortunately turned out to fit the fucking bill, to a fucking t. Praise for her writing had led to praise for her looks, then sexual fantasies, which became increasingly detailed, then angry, then violent, and before long she was a dumb cunt who couldn’t write to save her life, who deserved to be raped to death in increasingly creative ways, who had definitely picked the wrong guy to fuck with. She’d blocked him repeatedly from one platform to another, as he took on one username after another—something like 37 blocks in less than a week. Smirk. Shrug. Bravery. “There’s nothing quite like the depravity of society to make a girl feel special. #noiactuallydontwanttochoketodeathonyourbigcock” But then the packages started arriving—no return address. The 1st was a nude printout of her pulled from online. But it was from an actual photo shoot and was very artistically done—so who cares? The 2nd was a still from one of the revenge-porn videos she’d given up on trying to get rid of. But it was still easily accessible online—so come on, who cares? The 3rd was a photo of her standing on her front porch, holes punched through her face and crotch—just like the previous 2—which she tried her best to convince herself were just pencil-holes, despite making much more convincing bullet-holes. And since police involvement was never an option for her—unwilling as she was to put her trust in a system that had fucked her so many times in the past, on one occasion even literally and against her intoxicated will—it was with a smirk of fear, a shrug of resignation, and a bravery of defeat that Aria accepted the comfort of drugs as her only relief. “Fight or flight? …or just get super fucked up and pass out to Netflix? hmmm… #goingthroughthebigHanddontmeanhouston”
Aria loved Jawbreaker’s “Boxcar,” although she wished it referenced an author other than Kerouac, since she thought he was overrated and had a skill with the English language comparable to a chimpanzee sitting at a typewriter. Another one of her favorites was “Beat Your Heart Out” by The Distillers. Now, if only some of the misery could be taken out of it to make it more of an actual goddamn love song. She would sing along with “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues every chance she got, which during the Christmas season was often multiple times per night. It was too distinctly Christmassy, though, to ever be thought of as one of her favorite songs during the other eleven months of the year. She also loved The Coathangers’ “Buckhead Betty,” if only satirical criticism didn’t come off so often as a personal attack, which certainly wasn’t the best way to create a constructive dialogue and start the process of maybe, possibly, potentially engendering some positive change in the world.
Aria was never one to shy away from the topic of death. “The only thing guaranteed to each of us in this life as we know it. #DEATH #ignoreitifyoucan #fearitifyoumust #escapeityouwont” And she certainly didn’t see the stigma in suicide. “One of the only things you can only do once. #SUICIDE #yourfateisinyourhands #sliceaway #adventurersonly” She embraced the notion of nonexistence with the smirk of a person who knew she couldn’t honestly understand it. Death as the ultimate end—very, very, very likely. …but maybe not? Reincarnation? Reliving your gravest sin in eternal damnation? Reliving your greatest pride and joy in eternal ecstasy? The eye-opening eternity of every moment of time and space seen from a universally objective perspective? She had advocated all at one point or another, in one fashion or another, and which of them she was likely to throw her weight behind at any given moment was heavily dependent on what kind of mood she happened to be in. Realistic. Voyeuristic. Pessimistic. Optimistic. Holistically and artistically naturalistic. All had a time and a place, a rhythm and a reason, a level of sincerity and a degree of emotion. None, though, were ever presented with any real measure of certainty, expectancy, or honest conviction. “The only thing worse than living forever, is dying before eternity runs its course. #boredomisbetterthannothing”
Aria’s death took all of us at RANK! by surprise—it hit us pretty hard. It’s easy say the signs were there in hindsight, but that’s a bullshit game to play. People have a way of overcoming adversity and turning things around, and sometimes the best thing you can do is just let them do their thing and hope for the best. And considering her track record and all the shit she’d been through, there was no reason to think Aria needed any special attention. Hell, when she told you about her life, it was basically one triumph over hardship after another. It honestly seemed like there wasn’t anything this girl couldn’t beat. And so when it came out that she had died, it was almost unbelievable. How? Why? What could have taken this girl down? What could have stopped her? What could rip this irrepressible human being from our lives? What? Why? How? Ultimately, it was drugs. Heroin overdose. Which the cops ended up ruling an accident. But considering the LAPD’s general indifference and reluctance to investigate, and then their slow-as-fuck, lackluster approach once they finally did, this conclusion certainly makes sense. I mean, if it were ruled a suicide, someone might have to look into why this beautiful young woman had decided to kill herself, what sort of abuse she had taken that had let her to this point, who the hell was to blame and how the fuck justice could be served. Whereas a lowlife junkie could just be dismissed. No one thinking or caring to ask—whether intentional or by accident—what had led this girl to start shooting up in the first place. Still, strange as it may seem, I actually like to think she killed herself on purpose. As hard as it is to think that she may have been going through shit she couldn’t handle, shit so tough she couldn’t take it anymore, I still like to think it was an intentional act, not just a random fucking accident—simply because I can’t imagine her not being in control. She used to say that she could see herself committing suicide someday, finding out what the next big adventure was, and if turned out to be nothing, then at least she wouldn’t be there to notice.
