Still Life No. 375



I am twelve, belly-down on
the edge of my bed.  Behind half-
closed lids, I imagine dying
in a dozen ways.  Perhaps the
car crumples on full-impact, my
flesh propelled at 2 times 60
mph against angled glass.  Other
times, my arms and legs dangle
as the body rotates, suspended by
neck.  Often, I can see the line
of red, welling on my wrist as 
I run water to keep life flowing.
Sometimes, steel slips in with
a slusssh and holding warm tissue
I topple like a wooden rook.  More-
over, a chasm bounded by God's sandstone,
wilderness and sky invites my step, and
I accept.  Possibly, a bottle of sleep
or an injection of ecstasy soothes
my passage into the silent expanse.

     Will they know if any of this
happens?  My mother screams, cries, and
pulls her hair while my brother says sadly,
"I knew this would happen."  My father is
not present, and my friends are speaking
elegies as I rise above them, drifting towards
the afterlife.  I imagine what people say, 
if they remark that I seemed studious yet
playful, outgoing yet isolate, quiet yet 
laughing, determined yet easily deterred.

     I could sit indoors for days, refusing 
to step outside, brooding on a nest of ends.
Or, I could not get outside enough, the
night full of tree fumes and cars.  Some-
thing animalistic, thrilling as the
noctural hunter's domain, quiet yet full of
hidden life.

     Now, I do not know that age will draw one
self over the other.



--jennifer crystal chien