A Suicide Note in Two Parts

I

The View

I tried to kill myself again today.

The Queen City Bridge

Knighted me with rusty gridiron

And the airwalk grid nipped

The back of my knees

Like an unruly puppy.

When I was little,

I whispered my secrets

To the river that shares my name.

It never spoke back.

Just carried them downstream

Like ginkgo leaves.

I wish it had told me

The view from the bottom is

So

So

So

High.

II

The Lucky Flip

The hollow is back again.

It’s a contradiction to describe

A void as presence.

But there it is.

Staring me down. Daring me.

“Do something. What are you, some kind of bitch?”

You always know just what to say

To make me get out my last smoke again

And flip it between my fingers adeptly.

A new crinkle in the thinnest of papers

For every time I refuse to ignite

This minty candlelight vigil.

The filters pile up around my boots

Like a countdown of every love I would burn

2. 8. 19, and the last that always finds

A seven dollar home in the next pack.

I think I do this to feel as if there is

Some heft in my pocket still.

To remind me that the sting comes

Before the pleasure.

This is my preemptive post-mortem

Before I chain off just one more

And let the day burn to stubble.

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