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