Mother’s Reflections on Suicide
(from the Notes of Letizia Grasso) November 1996
The end
No more pain
No more joy
No more tears
No more smiles
No more anxieties
No more satisfactions
No pressure to achieve
No more achievements
No more hatred
No more love
No more dark nights
No more splendid sunrises
No more frustrations
No more accomplishments
No more angry words
No more terms of endearment
NO MORE
and amputation
that you imagined as a clean surgical cut
but instead
is a bloody, jagged me that won’t heal
and soils everyone you ever cared about
and cared about you.
We are left, puzzled, bloodied, wounded
No longer vibrant , whole confident
Now we go forth handicapped, missing an essential limb,
that will never be replaced
and always longed for.
Your legacy,
sorrow, betrayal, anger, guilt.
An ignoble reciprocation
of so much love
You should have chosen
to stay,
fight,
argue
fail
disappoint me
and keep stretching the narrow confines
of my perimeter.
INSTEAD YOU ARE GONE
I AM STAGNANT, IN STUPOR
I VIEW MY WORLD AND FEAR TO FACE THE AGONIZING BEAUTY AND PAIN OF LIFE
I THINK OF JOINING YOU
AND REALIZE YOU TOOK THE BEST PART OF ME WITH YOU.
In this zombie state,
I wander in the shadow world
The atrium of death
where I must decide which exit
left or right,
left into cold night
right into the endless struggle
and bloody battles of life.
No longer equipped for the fight,
minimized
traumatized
disregarded
anguished.
I curl up in this atrium
and lick my wounds that will not heal
and look inside
to find purpose
to reinvent my life
to reinvest my energies
to find my courage
that will allow me to foolishly
continue with this life.
No longer whole,
No longer young
trustful
gay
but,
bloodied
old
tired
a shadowy remnant
of my old self
I set out
to continue alone.
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