[Originally posted 29 December 2020]

The dead cannot call out to us.

All they can do is wait for us to call to them.

A Man, Keiichiro Hirano

i have always disliked xmas

holidays and bow-wrapped gifts
the shortest daylight of the year

the seasonal depression
of being always a stranger

i have been losing xmas eve

social media reminding me
a crushed cycling helmet from 2016

a text message xmas morning 2020
my aunt killed herself the night before

i have not cried for my aunt yet

our fractured family tensions
quilted with abrupt texts and messaging

verbalizing the weight of suicide
the frailty of just being human

i have pervasive anxiety about that frailty

the shock of suicide reminds me of Camus
“that after a while you could get used to anything”

except of course those who can no longer
fathom simply waking up one xmas morning

i have so many mostly ineffable words

minutiae tenuous melancholia existentialism mundane
this language merry-go-round chiming out of kilter

her matter-of-fact obituary-life of 192 words
a 17-word text admitting “box cutter” and “throat”

—P.L. Thomas