for the holiday suicides

see note for reviewers.

ever hear those obnoxious individuals claim that a lot of

people killing themselves around the

“holidays” is a myth?

ever see them walk with self-righteousness

as if they shouldn’t be bothered with the very idea that others in this world

might not share their abundant joy

when it comes to the genocide of native-americans or

the “birth” of a fictional character?

 

isn’t it ironic that what can be claimed as a myth so quickly is

directly a result of worshipping two?

 

cut to manatee county, fl,

where only hours ago

a man whose name has yet to been released

killed his girlfriend,

knocked on the neighbor’s door to tell them what he’d done &

then pulled the trigger on himself---

details will come.

 

then there’s scott degraff, a nightclub owner in vegas

who owed a guy in NYC $4 million---

he locked himself in somebody else’s garage

in aspen, co

& let the

carbon monoxide flow---

dead at 8am, thanksgiving morn.

 

and was there anyone there for the unnamed woman of 32

who after writing her note & leaving it in her mercury SUV,

ran into the oncoming lane on interstate 80/94 in indiana?

while the first semi missed her, a second one hit her head on---

that was around 1:15 pm---she died a short time later in a

hospital in munster.

 

not to mention mr. luther bolen, 55,

an inmate at the arkansas dept. of community correction

who hung himself with a sheet from a shower rod on wednesday &

subsequently died sometime on thanksgiving in a

texarkana hospital---he was due to be out in

january. 

 

for the holiday suicides, coverage in the press might not always occur---

they may not pop up for days, weeks, months,

but people who claim that “the majority of people”

don’t do anything rash due to the overwhelming loneliness

that comes from this time of year for some

need to appreciate that they themselves are not in that place

a much deeper & darker place that cannot be imagined by

statistics or zombie smiles & jingling purses on

black friday.

Author's Note

“The only difference between suicide and martyrdom, really, is press coverage.”

-From the novel, Survivor, by Chuck Palahniuk


“Life’s greatest gift is the freedom it leaves you to step out of it whenever you choose.”

-From the Anthology of Black Humor by André Breton


Le Suicidé
Edouard Manet
Oil on Canvas
1877-1881