Suicide is by Edythe Rodriguez

○             Tuesday. I drive to work past the same lake each day. there and back. there and back. today, it ripples in my direction.

○             the pain in my side began three years ago and I never got it checked out, despite visiting the doctor for umpteen other things.

○             a red flag. another.         another.         ignore them all. welcome him, still. print doormat on my forehead.

○             planned.

○           spur of the moment.

○             taking my meds off schedule. skipping doses. I popped one in front of my mom. she thinks I’m fine now.

○             walking out of the house. Black. (un)armed.

○             missing my appoitnment, again. looks like I didn’t set my alarm, again.

○             a way out. 

○           See: Igbo landing.

○           letting the doctors do their job. unquestioned.                 

○           See: Medical Apartheid.       

○           See: c-section scars we didn’t need.                         

○           See: J. Marion Sims.                

○           See: the doctors amputate my grandmother’s left foot by accident.

○           See: they come back for the right one.     

○           See: history                      how they slice us for sport.

○             leaving untreated.

○            reactive.

○             proactive when you think about it. when the world is trying to kill you, anyway.

○            the paring knife vibrating in its pocket to the beat of my name. something’s changed. maybe its angle. maybe one is missing. maybe I am the only thing culpable here. 

○             expensive for all involved and left behind.

○             merciful. an act of love. I do not hate myself enough for torture. for all endurances.

○             the coward’s way out, according to my father.

○          not recommended. illegal. easy to bat away when the load is not theirs to carry. 

○           do not die.           do not die.     do not die they tell me 

     as they pile more bricks on my back. 

○           do not break, mule.                   do not break.             we have more places to go.

Edythe Rodriguez is a Philly-based writer who studied Africology and poetry at Temple University. She loves neo-soul, battle rap, and long walks through her high school poetry journals. Edythe has recipient of fellowships from The Watering Hole and Brooklyn Poets and her work is published or forthcoming in Obsidian, Cream City Review, Call and Response Journal and Bayou Magazine. Cover art is the upper portion of Neha Misra’s “People of Color’s Perennial Dreams of a New Reality,” featured in THE VISUAL.