CW: suicidal ideation and a suicide attempt

I

It is four o’clock in the morning

my soul is chatty and will not be denied.

I am ducked under the blanket with the phonelight,

sleeping 7 year old limbs strewn sweetly across my body.

Mom forgot and left the heat off again

in my petulant battle with the old, glitchy thermostat.

So my son woke up cold in the dark March morning

and demands my signature body heat

in exchange. I am willing, soaking in the sweetness.

And yet I’m lying awake, thinking of you, of your

Passive Death Wish.

And the health care labyrinth that is designed only to kill you, as slowly as possible, for profit

And how tired you are of it all

And it sneaks up on me.

The people that live in this home with me

they are my heart and soul, the air I breathe

and so I condition myself to their loss daily.

Confronting the pain of it,

despite the raw, ugly nature of the wounds,

it keeps me present to their preciousness.

But you, I take for granted, despite your tenuous grip on life,

you are ancestral kin, tethering me to acres and eons of something bigger

than my own internal considering.

I rely on you

to hold on to the parts of myself no one else knows how to see,

like your glasses are endowed with special multidimensional lenses that see me whole,

unbound by what you need me to be

because you don’t.

And in the reminder of your impermanence

I am again reminded of my own.

Cascading down the falls of grief

wondering, how did I ever survive this life before knowing you?

Recognizing, I didn’t, I didn’t exist yet.

You helped see us into this

being.

If you leave us here,

how much will go with you?

II

I honor you, my friend,

How do you survive this subtle insatiable longing

for peace?

It consumes me.

Even the fiery tongues of love that once propelled me forward like combustion

lick my boots and slaver over my flesh and bones,

wearing me down with that rough, insistent

caress.

I will erode under this unceasing current.

Is age erosion?

Making small what was once large

returning precious minerals

to their source?

I honor the peaks and valleys of this landscape

I traverse their secrets, recognize their perfection

and their danger. Life ends. It is fact.

It is only the matter

of time.

III

Each morning I swear my fealty to Sun

promising my gratitude for and love of

life.

And i swear to you it is true,

I am living proof you can be madly and wildly in love with life.

and long just as much to leave this human thing

behind.

The incurable desire to be simple,

to trade the unbearable weight of brain tissue

for the miraculous, odorous beauty

of rotting.

The inherently satisfying act of

returning something borrowed,

something

spectacular,

in order

to nourish life

that knows nothing of I statements

or possession.

IV

To parents with passive death wishes:

No one can provide them what you can.

No one in the whole world can love them like you do.

No matter how flawed, or imperfect, or broken, or undermined, or how violent the attacks on your very being.

No one could possibly love them the way you can.

V – When passive death wishes take flight…

You threw yourself out of a 3rd story hotel window

where you were living

after attacking your son

in front of your grandson.

After you drove them there

nearly blackout drunk.

You died on the operating table

before my brothers remembered to tell me that you had tried to die, died, and were yet still alive.

I kicked into gear.

This is what I do, always, what needs to be done.

I coordinated care,

we visited you.

filled out mountains of paperwork,

spent countless hours begging people

to do their jobs.

To do something.

I cooked chili and corn bread

I fed my brothers

like you would have.

And as soon as you could walk to the bathroom to pee

they kicked you out, no where to go.

Paperwork a futile distraction from the truth.

There was nothing anyone ever intended to offer.

Including me, your daughter.

I would not open my home to you.

I know your addictions, your abuse,

your love, your silly sweetness,

your unpredictable trauma.

How once when my infant son was in your care

You slept with him in your bed with you, Oxy, and Alcohol.

And so I gave you my savings,

my conditional love,

and stopped answering your calls.

—————–

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