dear suicide
how is the war? is it eating?
tell me of the girls charging
backwards into dumb tides
death’s wet mouth lapping
their ankles, knees, eyebrows.
tell me of the sissies like drunk
fireworks, rocketing into earth
afterimage burned into river
& cement memory.
how is the war? does it have
a wife? does she know how
the bodies got in her bed?
dear suicide
i know your real name.
i bind you from doing harm.
i enter the room like a germ.
i say your name, it is my name.
the walls cave around me like a good aunt.
the window hums. the door rocks me.
the dresser leaves to go make tea.
the room knows my name.
it binds us from doing harm.
dear suicide
where are you keeping my friends?
every cup i turn over holds only air.
i jimmy open a tulip expecting their faces
but find only the yellow heart.
what have you done with them?
yesterday i took my body off
beat it on the front steps with a broom
& not one of them
came giggling out my skin
yelling you found me!
not one of them i called for
was already in my hand.
dear suicide
you a mutual friend
a wedding guest, a kind
of mother, a kind of self
love, a kind of freedom.
i wish you were a myth
but mothers my color
have picked ocean