Last month, my neighbor committed suicide in her garage. Our back yards smack up against one another, and often, I would see her sitting on her back stoop watching her kids play. The week before she took her life, she and her 12 year old son spent a warm evening making a big backdrop for a school play, while the other child, younger, played. From the outside, they seemed happy.

You never know how people are feeling on the inside.

I will not pretend to understand what drove her to close the door to her garage, turn on her car, and leave her two children and husband behind. The decision could not have come lightly. I will not judge her.

Dark Words

Searching for that bit of quietness inside me-

That solid sense of certainty I once knew.

Softly, in the night I cry internally-

My being, lost and quivering, is searching too.

My heart, I fear, is breaking from me-

Running, thrumming, its fear anew.

Without its beating silence finds me-

And like a lance it runs me through.

But I don’t feel cold metal pierce me-

My soul is missing, my being blue.

Like stones in water, my life consumes me-

I watch it burn and feel subdued.