Suicide has also become an ordinary topic of conversation among the young who more than ever before seem to be able to discuss it openly and dispassionately as an option in trying circumstances. Suicide appears to be an accepted fact of life in Micronesia.-NY Times
Micronesia
And it felt like that time
he had tied his knot
and curled up his legs- just a touch
of slipping away. He waited
till his lungs started to fill
before surfacing, spouting:
It wasn’t bad!
You should try it!
And we do, we try it every day-
lives exhaled with the smoke.
We sample death
like hors d’oeuvre, bit by bit
till one meal we eat a bit too much,
sit back, bloated,
and lay down in a coffin.
If only we could each see our clock
suspended, perhaps, above one’s head
or stuck into our chests.
A way to see the minutes left,
the ones we haven’t spent.
And then we’d notice
the ten seconds that tick away
when someone holds the door.