overediting my suicide note

my spotify premium subscription runs out the same day

i cover my chalkboard in a suicide note

and it’s not a coincidence.

but the chalk breaks in half

and squeals as it touches the wall,

so the apology for trying to kill myself becomes a lot more concise.

by this i mean that right before i die i’ll be standing

or sitting or laying or whatever

and my brain will be heavy with everything i think i forgot to say

which will be laced with everything i said wrong.

i want to die cleancut- think person sized x-acto knife-

before i can start deleting and retyping, respelling,

rewording. adding and subtracting commas,

equations floating in air, trying to best place emphasis on

the waiting

before the reading.

my psychiatrist tells me my body is all mine and i am the sole tenant

and i don’t tell him he’s wrong.

instead i drive home with eyes soaking into the road but

thinking about math or commas or the space where either could be,

and i know that my mind will only ever lend itself to

sheer expression while my hands watch, and occasionally,

rewrite a suicide note.

a home for roadkill

i look at the wolf and say tear

me apart, look at the boy and tell him to

kiss me right here right now. the blood’s only

bad if it’s yours so cut me

open and lay me out on the kitchen table,

the bathroom floor, the road outside.

the wolf starts at my stomach and

leaves me empty. the boy starts at my

chest and doesn’t leave. the blood is mine or

there’s no blood at all and that’s what we wanted.

the blood is mine so i say thank you and i

sit up and i nail another notice

on my front door for all the local carnivores.

and i am saying thank you now,

and i am saying thank you every time after.

C.W. is a poet from South Carolina that spends equal amounts of time writing and talking about writing. She's been or is to be published through Over Yonder Publishing, Maybe Later Press, and Tongue Tied Magazine.

#poetry #vol7 #boneandink #suicidecw #cw