“Forgive me. In case you are the one who found the body, I am really sorry. It had to be someone, you know. I have chosen Jo Nketaih’s poem as my suicide note: “They said you came looking for me. I didn’t drown; I was the water.” Where do atheists go to when they die? lol. Amen"._ Chukwuemeka Akachi Believe it or not— depression is a dice rolling into our lives. if you’ve walked through the long night of grief, you’ll meet the ghost that lives in your head. You will see shadows hiding in your walls, and hear taunting whispers: “take another capsule and lay rest.” on this road, a boy made his body, a pendulum, swinging freely from side to side my therapist walked through this road. She watered weeds till they grew wild and ate her up. Her therapy couldn’t save her— anymore. Even the therapist needs a therapist. Now, I’m on the road between dying, and wanting to sleep— again. Granny said the shadows I see are dying flowers. I admire the dying ones, whenever she tends her roses. take it: a withered flower will not wither— again. yesterday, a poet walked into the night with pain and pills. he never came out. I wish I found out if he found peace. inside my head is a sad film— movie reels grayscale & fade to black. peering at Freud’s sadistic theories, my superego drives my ego to end it. To be an athletic god. my English language instructor once passed this path. He said: life is like a semicolon; we can end it. We chose not too Listen: I decide never to do it—again. ever. Won’t you celebrate with me, that every day, something has tried to kill me, and has failed, and has failed, and will fail?* * Lines riffing off Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me” poem from Book of Light. Copyright © 1993.
