POEM: Wanting To Die

Wanting To Die

How many times I crossed the dark,

arrived at the lit room,

and felt the pull beneath my sternum —

the body’s disagreement against its own continuing.

I have come such distances to stand here,

appetite for departure already home,

already humming at the head of me

like something never fully latched.

Kindness — what others carry easily,

their mouths full of it, easy as weather —

I have turned it over in my hands

and found the underside consistently absent.

What a declaration for the diminishing hour.

What a thing to finally say aloud

when the light is already dimmed,

when the window holds its own cold.

Pathetic, says my voice that is always honest.

But even that voice is losing interest in its own indictment,

filing the last complaint without conviction.

Next time is the terminus.

I have decided this the way one decides

to stop a conversation that was never

answered in the correct language anyway.

I am glad.

The living of it — that sustained combustion,

that long and unrewarded residency in pain —

is nearly through.

The door is not a threat anymore.

It is the first generous thing.

Marni Fraser

0426.2026

10:13pm.

Detail “Blossom Deary” by me