A knock

the nice young man hands her

a beautiful long box

with a knowing smile

inside she opens the lid

parts the tissue

and sees the two dozen red roses

and a card the said “Forgive me.”

She dutifully carries the bundle to the kitchen

and there carefully lines up the blossoms

snipping the stems evenly

one by one

then arranging them in an empty vase

carrying it into the living room

placing it in the center of their mantle piece.

Still padding around in her nighty

her arms bare

the bruises from where he held her

crimson last night now turning magenta

blossoming visibly

she stops to admire the vase

then

returns to the kitchen

and

one by one

drops the still unfurled expensive blooms

down the deposal

turning the water on full

flipping the switch with a smile.

Troubadour, bard and sausage maker

In a time before the booty shaker

Unlikely team

Babbling stream

Their art was a money raker

Every story has a beginning

The climb before the winning

Song and story

Time before glory

The laughs and fists that send them spinning

A drunken loon that all ignore

Waltzed upon the butcher's door

Angry shout

Cast out

The nonsense-chanting troubadour

Around the sausage maker turned

Saved as the little market burned

A man saved

Adventure craved

Unlikely debt to be returned

Singing and dancing with no justification

Blending the days with no destination

Princes of mud

Fall with a thud

All to be shunned by a nation

But in the muck they met another

Cast from a tavern, a third unlikely brother

Running hard

Came the bard

In a crash to match no other

Cast from the village were all three

With only each other for company

Treading a wood

Where none should

Combating their fears in harmony

Around then they all discovered

Their hidden talent uncovered

Tales of long

Cast in song

As the people marveled and hovered

Across the towns they would flourish

Singing by tunes of lute and Moorish

Low and high

They sang to sky

To the soul the music seemed to nourish

So now you see how in a time so hard

Of the plain commoner whom none regard

Three ill-fated

The hand belated

Upon a sausage maker, troubadour and bard

All the suicides that have touched me were note-less, so I have no hard evidence of what they were thinking in those final moments. I imagine they were in constant pain (mental, emotional or physical) and feeling without hope or meaning or support or understanding, and that either there was no one who would care or, by then they didn't really care if there was someone or not.

My fifth year teaching, one of my colleagues put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He was a priest on sabbatical from being a priest with a brilliant, (mildly) narcissistic mind working in a mediocre public school populated by unmotivated students with parents who occasionally did their children's assignments and then wondered how they could possibly have gotten an F...

He taught history. He was finishing up his third year which he taught by way of endless movies and profound monologues given in the dark as he sat in the reclining chair he'd installed in his classroom, with a background of loud classical music that could be heard by all the classrooms in his wing...

The day before we had to deal with grieving, traumatized teenagers, he and I had had a lively conversation in the copy room about the upcoming summer and how he was going to teach summer school and how much he was not looking forward to that, but he was anticipating some good reads.

But, apparently, he was actually contemplating an abrupt end to his story, not just a chapter.

He left no note, and at the funeral attended by students, parents, teachers and his priestly colleagues, it was reiterated by his bishop ad nauseum that he did not take his own life.

That, and the myriad gushing comments about a man he wasn't did leave me wondering if it were the twilight zone.

I really don't know why he took his own life when he did. I don't know why that moment was any worse than any day prior. I guess there was a straw no one else knew about.

Alternatively, after flipping off the admistration and his colleagues for a year, maybe this was the biggest flip off of them all. I could see him thinking that.

The following year, a student of mine hung himself one night at his father's place of business. He had a terminal illness but his parents had always kept the terminal aspect from him. He was in biology class when he found out he was going to die sooner rather than later. He confronted his parents. What could they say to make it all right? Nothing. He left no note but taking his life put the "when" in his hands... and doing it at his father's place of business was a very loud message, I think.

The next year a sweet, sad student took an inordinate amount of some illegal substance and freed himself from a lifetime of melancholy. No note left behind, just many grieving, broken hearts.

A few years ago, I had lunch with a former student to catch up. After spending almost every afternoon with me for detention (to do his homework), and barely graduating, he turned his life around, went to college, became an accountant and was working for Delotitte. We chatted about former classmates and I asked about one of my first students who was forever angry and full of attitude, but if you cared to look, with a soft, sad heart. She'd moved to Florida at 16 and became a model. His smile faded as he informed me that she had commited suicide at 21.

Turns out, it was the same year as the sad, sweet young man above.

I don't know if she left a note. I don't know why she picked the day she did, what made living a moment longer unbearable. I wish she'd had a reason to stay.

I wish they'd all found one reason to stay.

There's always a chance tomorrow will be better.

Until there are no more tomorrows.

Cancer.

A simple word.

A little word.

And still…

I can feel the ground rumbling underfoot. The room is a vacuum and all of the air has been sucked out. Voices drone, but all I hear is roaring. My feet shuffle on the slick tile, and then I’m grasping her to my chest: my little daughter with the ink black curls. I don’t know how I got here, across the room from that evil word. I bury my face in her hair, breath in the fever sweat and oil and dirt. How long until I’m pulling dark strands off of her pillow? Or will she die before the hair can fall out? I’m spiraling now, sinking lower into my panic, breathing deeper gulps of the smell of her detangler, tears pelting her head like a summer rain.

I have to stop. I have to stop. I need to control myself. For her.

I suck in one last indulgent breath, and then a small hand is clasping my cheeks, dark brown eyes boring into mine with an intelligence that betrays an old soul, wearied by the months long struggle with her mystery illness… her…cancer.

She pats my cheek. I pat hers. Our eyes lock in the embrace of words unspoken. She knows. Her eyes have told me the truth. She knows. A tiny smile touches her rosebud lips, and her voice is a whisper of spring rain, “It’s okay, mama.”

Lumbering steps approach from the other side of the room, and large arms encircle us. Her smile grows as she reaches up to pat daddy’s cheek, too. I shrink in, pulling their love around me. We are safe here, in this cocoon of family. We are safe. And the world can crumble. And our hair can fall out. And the doctors can say that evil word. But I am safe in the arms of my family.

For now.

On a misty morn, he walks the street

a chain of meats he carry

to the merchant's wife, to bring her aid,

and dares he not to tarry.

The merchant's wife requires foods

and more she needs of Frank

the chain of bangers, coiled for her

he rushed in weather, dank.

Some bangers she requested, true

and she had asked for more

the open door to her boudoir

gave clue to her implore.

"I say, you have my produce, m'lady

what more of me you seek?"

"I'll have another sausage, man

a footlong savory link."

And so he showed his hidden gift

the merchant's wife, was pleased.

she ordered daily rations hence,

and served her household, these.

Her husband did not mind, it seems

to have no foul nor pork.

engrossed he was in counting coin

and spent all thought on work.

And so in bliss, the merchant's wife

received Frank's inventory

but their lives changes as entered he,

the bard, to change the story.

A bard he was, a poet skilled,

in rhyming cobbled, verse.

invited he, 't merchant's house

with parchment, writ in terce.

Presented he the balad short,

and as she read she smiled.

and thus the bard, enchanted he,

his humors thus beguilled.

Applied his quill and wrote her more,

of wond'rous things of hew

it was, of course a subtle glint

a literary clue.

And read she well and found his heart

alluded 'twixt his lines

she gave him food and kisses,

and in bed they sat and dined.

One day she served him sausage links,

in linen sheets they laid,

t'was then they heard a clamor,

remonstrations of the maid.

They hurried, coverd naked flesh,

in cloth, and woolen dress.

and met the injured sausage-smith

Who saw her hair a mess.

A wild and savage mane she had,

untamed because of haste

and Frank was sure what had transpired,

His love she had misplaced.

And challnged he, the bard to meet,

and settle things of pride,

the bard had blinked but made ascent,

his honor he wont hide.

I knew them both, o friends of mine,

poor bard and gallant Frank,

they met again despite my tries,

along the riverbank.

I tried to bring them peace in song

and desperately strummed my lute,

but it was livid, hurtful stares,

it made my efforts mute.

Presented they the weapons, sharp,

their daggers; all they owned

they pounced upon another quick.

and soon, i heard a groan.

The bard was cut, his injury,

was deep and his blood flow

he fell upon the grass and lay

his eyes in pain aglow.

We rushed to help and comfort him,

he smiled then , as we nursed,

and said it did occur to him,

that Frank had done his wurst.

Fear came to mind, first.

I hate to admit why.

In a world where I spent so many of my years searching for acceptance;

There was no place more self-contradictory than the church.

You may come, "beloved" but be this; this alone.

I'd rather be mad and free, thank you.

When the earth starts to shake, I always find it in me to disappear.

I hide, afraid as always, of what it would be for someone to see me in the middle of an earthquake.

In-between the cracks in my flimsy armor.

I take cover and brace myself and wait for the force keeping me standing to piece me together, hold me upright

I sit and I wait and I wait and I...

Dream.

I sit and wait and dream.

Of a different world.

This world was made for bolder ones, I suppose.

Those of us who have our feet constantly off the ground, heads in the clouds or in the ground, desperate for solace and security?

We are doomed to live forever through earthquake after heart-shattering earthquake

Feel our blood spike with the tremors of the ground as it tumbles beneath our feet

Slip, sink, vanish a while with me, my friend

While we drown again this night, follow me to dream

Of a world where Fear is a forgotten relic of history, a thing of the past

Where Shame is too burdened by self-loathing to walk so confidently among us

Where the folly of Self-consciousness is forever drowned out by whispers in the trees of "you deserve to be here"

But I'm afraid anxiety and I will dance another round, another day

Panic will pool at my finger tips, trying to force crimson scratches I make just to hide his presence

I'm afraid I will always be afraid

I'm afraid of the world I've always lived in.

Where the earth always shakes, where I must walk along with the cracks in the armor regardless

I go within

savoring the pulsing seconds

of you within me

after the building

sucking thrusting caressing

pressing deep

finally

the sweet release when I go still

as the earth shakes

around me.

The troubadour's cape swirled red and black as he strode through the entrance to the butcher's shop. In the street a bard sang of his conquest, the great bull Taurus dead at his feet. A battle between man and the magnificent beast ended with El Trueno as the humble survivor.

Yet the mournful tone, in minor key, sang of tragedy not victory as he gave the butcher his request. And his own heart knew it was a great waste which he would redress this very moment.

"Sausages. For the poor. For though Taurus is dead, and his great spirit is free, his body will not go to waste. Feed the beggars, the widows and their children. Make them from the carcass I have dragged to your door." The warrior gestured through the arch to the back, and the butcher strode through to slide open his back door.

The butcher returned, "It will be as you say. But the battle with the king is far greater this day."

"I do my part to change what I may. Let the bard sing of hope for the people as I go on my way." He doffed his hat, its feather waving, disappearing into the crowd outside.

And the thunderous call of Ole, Ole, followed the bullfighter as he limped away.