Unfinished Exit
I keep thinking about the time in high school when you drew
me
a map of the city, I still have it somewhere. It was so easy to
get lost
in a place where all the trees look the same.
And now every time I see a missing person's poster stapled to
a pole,
all I can think is that could have been me. Missing,
disappeared.
But there are no posters for people who just never came back
from vacation,
from college, from life.
You haven't killed yourself because you'd have to commit to a
single exit.
What you wouldn't give to be your cousin Catherine,
who you watched twice in one weekend get strangled nude
in a bathtub onstage
by the actor who once filled your mouth with quarters at
your mother's funeral.
The curtains closed and opened again. We applauded until
our hands were sore.
But you couldn't shake the image of her lifeless body,
the way she hung there like a marionette with cut strings.
And now every time you try to write a poem, it feels like a
eulogy.
A desperate attempt to capture something that's already
gone.
But maybe that's why we keep writing, keep searching for
the right words,
because in this world where everything is temporary,
poetry is our only chance at immortality.
So even though you haven't found the perfect ending yet,
you keep writing. For Catherine, for yourself, for all the lost
souls
who never got their own missing person's poster.
Because as long as there are words on a page,
there is still hope for an unfinished exit to find its proper
ending.
