Unfinished Exit by Claudia Wysocky

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

and 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.