I said to him, we can’t possibly understand
what drives someone to contemplate
suicide. It’s true, he said.
And it was as if we’d connected
in that moment,
in our shared inability to empathize
with lost souls.
But I had lied.

I’ve sometimes thought
about how easy it would be
to die. All of me would fall away,
leaving no aches in my legs,
no catch in my back,
no kink in neck,
no pounding fist in my skull.

And my eyes would close to humanity’s
terrors. My mouth would seal
itself, become ash, and my heart would shrivel
and forego that drowning feeling
that tightens my chest every time
cruelty rears its head in this world.

Sometimes I think about how I fear
death. But I don’t really—fear it.
I don’t welcome it
yet, either. But I understand,
and when waking is difficult
and strange,
I think it would be so easy
to fall away with all my parts
from the world and become nothing
like I was before conception.
To be undone
means no work,
no sorrow, no voice,
no tomorrow. And sometimes,
that sounds just about right.