Six Months After Contemplating Suicide By Erika L. Sanchez

Admit it —

you wanted the end

with a serpentine

greed. How to negotiate

that strangling

mist, the fibrous

whisper?

To cease to exist

and to die

are two different things entirely.

But you knew this,

didn’t you?

Some days you knelt on coins

in those yellow hours.

You lit a flame

to your shadow

and ate

scorpions with your naked fingers.

So touched by the sadness of hair

in a dirty sink.

The malevolent smell

of soap.

When instead of swallowing a fistful

of white pills,

you decided to shower,

the palm trees

nodded in agreement,

a choir

of crickets singing

behind your swollen eyes.

The masked bird

turned to you

with a shred of paper hanging

from its beak.

At dusk,

hair wet and fragrant,

you cupped a goat’s face

and kissed

his trembling horns.

The ghost?

It fell prostrate,

passed through you

like a swift

and generous storm.