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“Glass doors jingled merrily to signify depart
As every man can understand the end is but a start
Where steps adrift embark upon the echoes of the heart
Dreams can be a great panache—
—But death is truly art.”


From his seat behind the counter, the clerk could not decipher
His eyes stared out in wonder as the swinging doors swung shut.
His customer a well known-friend, his purchase quite peculiar,
And no one ere had used it short—so why’d he get it cut?


The gentle waft of coffee brings its bittersweet entice,
But taste was not in order as the teacher paced in thought;
His brightest child was listless and no reasons could suffice:
Why would the sixteen year-old just mumble he forgot?


Two eyelids sharply narrow as indifference turns to ire;
A furrowed brow of wonder pulled itself along the street.
Contemplating mystery, the handyman for hire
Walked his dog on anyway, assuming it a leash.


Despite his eerie silence his two eyes were narrow slits,
For in his house so suddenly not all was as it should;
He propped his legs upon it every evening, floor lamps lit:
The old man’s stool had disappeared from where it always stood.


He’d seemed in thought this evening when he made his daily trudge,
The mother’s thoughts entangled in what reasons there could be;
His arms still tender from her strikes, he never held a grudge,
“So why would he go straight upstairs and never look at me?”


His smile sprained in seven spots and easy gait replaced,
An exuberant sixteen year-old wrote all he wished to say.
His writing neat as ever and so delicately placed,
A laugh became a whisper as he kicked the stool away.


(And no one tells you why or how he tries to kill himself
Methods are but details, all too easily ignored
With nary pamphlet that describes such matters on the shelf
His knot was just above the spot he’d asked to cut the cord)


He nearly heard the seraphs sing,
The world’s most content myope
He dreamed to fly but burnt his wings
From hell to heaven he eloped
Yet back again his fate did bring
This broken record’s final hope
Such a quick and easy thing

—Oh why, Oh why, did he cut the rope?