FAILING AT SUICIDE

Like a myth,

you survive your own death.

Come to puking

in seclusion & slightly diminished

under the skeptical watch

of a charge nurse.

I don’t believe you, she says.

I’ve forgotten how

to belong here, you want

to tell her but don’t bother.

Time ticks away on the caged clock.

(Any hands that might hurt you,

they carefully lock away.)

Tomorrow will bring

all the lying the living require

of their own, but tonight

you are still a silence

left to be filled.