We Tossed "A Sui" There Instead of Our Bodies (2024)

A Sui was the name of a poem I wrote over a decade prior about window shopping suicide. I’ll have to find it.

In some landfill
  lies a recording of the fake snuff
    we shot in our youth
it awaits the finality
  we avoided
    by creating it

Hanging by christmas lights
  in hopes faith or capital
    might afford us a second life
she dangles limply
  practices stilled breath
  pretends to erase herself
  pictures starring in hollywood
    next time around
while the cables twist around her neck
  they tie gold knots through her hair
  as red dye drips
    from green bulb thorns

I unclip her gently
  grip her with clawed desperation
  mash my skin against hers
    until bone bruises bone
  force all her cells to stay 
    present and brimming
    through jolts of scratches
      and quickly sincere tears

I hold her
  my heart pressing prints
    into her back
until the camera shutters
  as the batteries die
and her eyes opened
  and adjusted their lenses

And then I held her more