Four summers ago, almost to the day, a friend took his life, and his life partner posted his farewell note. This situation was awful enough, on so many obvious levels, but what stuck with me –and still haunts me– is that he’d written the note months before the act, and acknowledged, in advance, that it was to be shared in the event of, you know. I knew and appreciated him as a very intelligent and sensitive man (we bonded over music in general and jazz music in particular, most especially jazz guitar), and he characterized his condition with the weary objectivity of one who had struggled too much, for too long, and (like so many others) made the ultimate decision that he wasn’t able or willing to keep fighting.
That alone is a tragedy that, like all suicides, explodes an individual’s existence and ripples outward, family and friends left to reckon with and wonder about the myriad what-ifs. So much regret, such a sense of helplessness (but never, we hope, hopelessness). I wrote this poem not long after and, while I can and do console myself with fond memories of his life and impact, I still consider it a failing (of myself, of society) that we simply don’t do enough to reach and rescue the ones busy drowning, silently (and some not-so-silently) right before our eyes as we go about the daily business of avoiding death by any means necessary.
Rest In Peace and know you are remembered, SS (*I don’t feel it’s my place to use his name, although I’d like to think he’d offer a sardonic endorsement –or better, a critique– of my sentiment). Thanks to Rough Cut Press for giving this one a home.
The Unsatisfactory Suicide Note
Yes the shock and yes the sadness and yes
the shame I felt (not for you, or your family,
but for myself and for the world; a decision
like yours is ultimately not a denunciation
of the individual, but rather an indictment
of the ways we’ve remade the world in our
image, busy collecting toys and trophies
and all too often measuring ourselves
in all the wrong ways), but if I’m honest
it was the note itself that I can’t quite reconcile.
I’d give it an A, for effort and content.
Therein, as they say, lay the rub.
It was too matter-of-fact, like the fact that now
we’re here & then we’re gone. In truth, I’d like
to have seen a little more despair. Unbelievably,
I would have preferred no note at all—and even
though we say someone checking out without telling
us why is the worst thing, I suspect seeing a note
written out so rationally, suggesting forethought
and the result of reflection is…
Unsatisfactory. Perhaps
if we framed some suicides
differently it would aid
the uncomprehending
amongst us, and allow them
to process them less painfully?
(What happened?
He was living with a chronic condition.
Cancer? No.
Lymphoma? No.
Heart ailment? No.
Well, what then?
Depression.)
You lived with this enervation the way a tree
endures while its roots rot it from the inside out;
every day growing and dying while the rain and pain
battle a very impersonal war of attrition. Some try
prayer, others physical fitness and still others dive
deeply into chemicals, particularly the ones advertised
in magazines piled high on tables in waiting rooms.
Most turn further inward, and that’s where the contagion
spreads—where no amount of disinfectant through therapy
or conversation or meds can make a dent because,
to use another lazy metaphor, the ship is taking on water
and hope alone can’t float.
You see, it’s not that Van Gogh died poor and in disgrace.
It’s that he died poor and in disgrace and now he is alive
in ways that would have mattered or made a difference
while he translated nature from the paint within his veins.
That museums and mom and pop retail shops are making
so many millions each successive year like orange clockwork
is the unnatural way of things, like the way we’re trying
to diversify our oceans with enough plastic to choke whales,
or tear down forests and turn them into miniature kingdoms
made of concrete and weed-killer.
So, precisely the way limestone purifies water, disaffection
Corrodes our souls, lulling the more sensitive amongst us
into this premature sleep.
