Evenings lately have been impossibly brisk, and simply impossible, with the surge of mosquitoes. Usually I gain back some of the sense I lost to the afternoon languor, and it is refreshing despite the unspeakable frustration I suddenly realize again.
Occasionally I think about how if I died, my poems might suddenly be revered. My genius, lamented. (Please do not hate me, I am trying to be honest). My past, picked apart and my poems taught with a brilliant solemness. Even if in one class in one city… there is pleasantness in such thought. There is a deep lack of self-respect in this thought. Disgusting narcissism.
From my research a few weeks ago I learned that stabbings account for 3% of suicide (…attempts?). It is a rare phenomenon. Some of the papers had pictures—I forgot that most of life does not have content warning. I learned that from an analysis of suicide letters, the only significant difference between the letters written by people with completed attempts compared to unsuccessful attempts was that with the former, the people expressed a larger dimension of burden. “People commit suicide because of other people.” How harsh is this because…
I’ve been watching a lot of reunion videos. you know those 20, 40 year ones, separated by government, war, money, life, etc. They are so beautiful. The end of life ones are so heart-wrenching too. There is hugging in all such videos. Tears and runny noses and saliva-heavy wailing. Sometimes I think the progressives are too harsh about our desire for a “back to normal.” It’s not like when we were desiring that, we deliberately ignored the racism, the fast-fashion, the underfunded health care system. I don’t think we were thinking of that. I think most of us were thinking of seeing older family members, a lunchtime stroll, pat on the back. One of the teachers at my old high school passed away after a quick-moving battle with cancer. When Madame H told me this, she mentioned how the teacher was not able to see her family for a month when she was in the hospital in spring, as her treatment began to no longer work.
I cannot believe I am writing to no one but a possible someone, and that it helps, if only an ounce, if only for thirty minutes more. Maybe it’s just the heat. Maybe it’s just this world.
The period app is only one day off with its prediction, this cycle. It also predicts a few cycle further. It declares the red days, confident my body will still be moving with the moon in autumn.
