“I’ve been accused of having a death wish but I think it’s life that I wish for, terribly, shamelessly, on any terms whatsoever.”
Tennessee Williams, from “Sweet Bird of Youth”
Have you seen life?
Many people in the world do.
My friends and friends of friends.
Jeremiah killed himself a few weeks ago,
And in his obituary they say he is survived by
His mother, his sister, his wife, and his daughter.
My nieces and nephews, maybe.
One niece tried to pour acid on her face
At nineteen, because she was tired of life.
My father thinks about it,
For as long as I have known
And the more people he loses
The more he wants to go on ahead with them.
My mother does.
The more people she loses
The more she holds onto the world
And gets mad at them for abandoning her.
My brothers and sisters, probably.
Though I don’t want to think about that.
It’s complicated with me.
In high school, I was pulled from the edge of the third floor window
For trying to jump to win a bet of two hundred dollars.
The psychologists asked if I wanted to kill myself.
No, I said. I know I can make the jump.
I didn’t even think about dying.
He asked if I felt sad sometimes.
Doesn’t everyone?
Have you seen life?
I think I think about it now.
I hold it loosely like a late night glass of wine
On one of those melancholic nights
When it’s not life or death that one wants,
But something more, something else.
And every now and then, I sip from the glass
That holds a mixture of the sky, the dawn,
The reds and yellows of the sun,
The stars, and the night of the full moon.