Sara Rempe
Everyone wants to die
sometimes which isn’t
the same as wanting to kill
yourself a difference clarified as
they take my phone and jewelry
lock me inside my husband
on the other side a guard
in between I can’t leave I drag
my body the paper gown down
to the bathroom no knob no lock no
security and change fast as I
can manage because I can’t manage
any longer to be a wife or alive or the great lies
of my life but that’s not true it’s the truth
I can’t hold inside I have left behind
all I use to quiet me
alcohol nicotine promises I am
shocked I can’t keep the dying
version of me underneath no
it is something alive splitting
somewhere I am splitting open
bits of me sticking to the city words
stitched to the back of my throat I want to
spit free let them lead me out of myself
I see the saddest version of me
on a bench overlooking the sea
telling two stories
the past
is waiting somewhere for me
and the future too blank a space
to navigate so I am
locked down I look down
can’t see
the hem of my blue
paper gown
Sara Rempe is a writer and educator in New York. She earned her BA in creative writing and her MFA in poetry at Hunter College, where she received a teaching fellowship and a Norma Lubetsky Friedman Scholarship. She teaches at Hunter College and Fordham University. www.sararempe.com
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