}} A Manual of Suicide |

Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










A Manual of Suicide

Tongue black, blue-black
Sticking out till the throat
the distance between
ground – feet
‘What about it?’
‘The distance between
suicide and murder’
Let us not kill ourselves this summer,
we tell each other.
We’ll emit no compassion
when the rope presses
its twisted loop…
What manner of rope?
Maybe a cloth
             a scarf?
A lengthy letter,
only tenderness.
Where? Under the pillow,
or, on the table,
under grandfather’s glass-globule paperweight.
It is endless, this suicide.
Not this summer, she tells me,
We’ll rot too soon.
We have to hope
for a quick discovery.
Lose our soul
under a blade
on the wrist
into the vein.
 
 
 
← Soibam Haripriya