DEATH WISH

I make contingency plans 

for multiple suicides.
I envision my body dead, 

found floating in the surf 

weightless in the buoyancy of water. 

The first gulp of water into the lungs, 

and the retching stomach rejecting salt waters. 

I envision my body dead, 

thrown from a cliff, like a soaring bird. 

The impact twists the limbs,

flesh impaled by splintered bone. 

I envision my body dead.

 A vein, a tiny nick the royal purple color 

bathing a white towel 

followed by a ringing in the ears 

and a lightheadedness
I envision my body but i remember

my mother swallowed pills by the handfuls.

The beginning of the end 

first felt in the hand, then

the fingertips, and numbness 

that spreads up the arm 

until it reaches the heart
My body, the mind seduces, 

offers final solution, 

and escape from the pain.

I make plans for multiple suicide 

never tried, but I want to be ther.

I want to watch 

as I'm dragged out of the ocean, 

off the cliff, 

from the house, 

to see if something registers in his eyes.

But I am afraid of death. I am a coward.

I just want escape from this pain. Not death.

Waking up at night sometimes I think 

I am dying, or am already dead. 

The irreversible tingling starts 

in my fingers and travels up 

my hands and my forearms. 

I tried to stop it, throw 

the deadman's arm out of bed,

before it reaches my upper arm.

It is so close from there to the heart.

7/22? 1981

rev 10/15/2015