#suicides

There was the one who walked into a river with her pockets full of stones and the one who started her car with the garage door closed, determined to drive herself elsewhere. The youngest went into the kitchen and placed her head where she had so often placed chickens or hams. These were the women whose voices I carried in my backpacks, whose books moved with me from one city to another and, one day, I realised I had outlived all of them. I was sad that they could not describe the other world, that they offered no map to old age. Was it dangerous to write? I began to walk more carefully beside rivers, to eat cold food, to let someone else back the car out of the driveway.