Dear So & So: Suicide Groupie / Rusty Barnes

An idea trafficked about on the Net:

that all one needs as a suicidee can

be found in the mirror’s stark gaze.

It’s not always that way, that gimcrackery.

Sometimes people really want to die.

Every lived second becomes a louder voice

like unto the suicide-ant legging busily into

kitchen cabinets in search of night-crumbs.

The suicide-ant chirps busily at the others

in line as it tries to broker peace with the cats

using larger bites of familiar and posh nibbles

from the junk drawer. It does not stop to think.

Rather like the ant I confront my poisons.

The smell of rotting fish. I eat till I die.

/

RUSTY BARNES lives and writes in Revere MA, His work appears widely. In March 2024, Redneck Press will publish his fourth story collection HALF CRIME. His most recent poetry chapbook, DEAR SO & SO, combines a number of quatorzains like this one written in the last ten or twelve years. You can find him on SM @rustybarnes23.