Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash
TW: Suicide
I hold a dead wasp by its left wing
and place it in the trash, its gentle
ruin the middle of a pile of
kleenex. this time last year I obliterated
myself everyday in my brain until I
really tried it— left casserole dishes
of water out for the cat, knocked
over his food— turned music on then
off. ate the handfuls in silence. I tried
to purge it but gave up— crawled back to
the trash, got in bed with the wasp. woke up
in the hospital and hallucinated roadkill. this
year I weigh what I did when I was ten
and naive and newly sullen and beginning
to break. this year that version of me
follows me around, envelopes me in cold.
this year I feel something close to
nothing. I am too tired to be afraid.
Clara Rosen is an up-and-coming poet who loves literature, music, and hiking. This is her first publication.