“one of these mornings”

You will see white streaks on forearms
Pink zigzags on broken skin
Ask about his failures
At suicide, why he didn’t keep trying after
The dull knife didn’t cut until
His blue veins ran empty
Or until the assault of prescriptions
Wiped out consciousness
Question the single bullet
Loaded in some semi
Propped against his pillow

“Why cease even if the body resisted
When there were sharper knives, other pills
other rounds? What made you stop?”

You ask him,
Out of challenge

And he wrote it down
Quoted the wise words
Of the father
When he saw his son standing
At the window’s edge, promising
“You don’t always die. Sometimes
The highest peaks
The biggest doses
Don’t do it completely. And don’t forget
If you come out of it, alive
An invalid, a vegetable
It won’t be me
Who takes care of what’s left
Or finishes
What you couldn’t”

There are plenty of dead boys
Living, I’m telling you
You’ll see the burn marks, wrists stained
With slashes, temples moist and dented with the permanent curve
Of nights spent sleeping with the steel barrel too close
No, it’s not to remind themselves
That souls still live inside that skin
Those dark eyes purpled by nights
Waiting for some sign, tell you
They don’t