Although I may never commit suicide
I spend parts of each day thinking about suicide –
Thinking about how I lack the courage to do it.
–
I wake in the mourning with 60 per cent depression.
That’s how it remains for the whole day,
Except for the odd occasion in a year
–
In the doorway or on the street I meet by chance
For a few minutes a woman passing-by
Who has the time to stop and talk for three minutes
–
Or five minutes or even sometimes seven or eight minutes,
Who rocks back on her heels in her pink, hooped skirt
With laughter, no matter what the topic.
–
Depression and despair are two different states
Of mind, not having a lot in common.
Although I have 60 per cent depression, I do not despair.
–
I do not see eye to eye with Samuel Beckett
Who disapproved of suicide and who promulgated
The doctrine of ”going on” for the sake of ”going on”.
–
Estranged from my family, if I do not soon
Take my own life, others will take it from me –
Hooded males with knives in their tracksuits
–
Or medics in their scrubs prancing corridors
Or cowpat-faced ward sisters smirking
Or ice-cold proprietors of old peoples’s homes.
–
How is it that you do not see it, Samuel,
That I do not want to go on for the sake of going on –
Seeing the same old, tired-out impressionist paintings again and again?
–
Men are such po-faced bores.
Each one of them an editor-in-chief.
I wand to stand still by the water’s edge.
–
I want to hold a woman’s hand for the last time.
I want to fill my pockets with Palaeozoic stones.
I want to open my eyes.
From the collection Praise In Which I Live And Move And Have My Being (2012).
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