THE NIGHT BEFORE THE SUICIDE

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE SUICIDE
 
A Gothic Horror Story
 
by Robert Davidson
 
I have killed myself
 and today I attend my own funeral -
 But last night I went down to the morgue
 and there identified your body
 
Electric light gives a certain grace to the dead!
 those awful slabs - unknown corpses laid out side by side
 rigid forms cold on marble slabs
 
Water distends a corpse unpleasantly
 parchment skin bloats a drowned girl
 Your smile frozen, mocking - your stiff set lips -
 and then comes a moment in which
 I have gone through more than I lived in years
 
Speechless with emotion, I cried
 life is very cruel and love the cruelest cut of all
 If I could not have you, why then -
 I gripped your dress and your flesh with it
 and made you face the darkening river.
 You didn't think I'd do it!
 
What should I do with my love for you?
 hate it, fear it, because it is too much for me?
 Such cruel stabs of pain love gives -
 I stood on the very knife-edge of life.
 
In all things human there is a shedding of tears
 as we struggle with each other for love
 And now in a dream scream
 I burst my skin open, letting the blood run
 I open my throat with a knife.
 
As a ghost I stand by
 as they lower my coffin into the ground -
 In all the searchings of my heart
 I have never felt more wounded, more broken, more alone
 Your last words to me as keen as blade-thrusts -
 Now knowing my soul would never rest
 I knew my defeat was complete.
 
Copyright 2006