Gun under chin, cigarette between lips. Just feeling them both. Through the window orange light splayed across the wall and floor. A car in the neighborhood. Wind through the trees. The lights are off in the living room. I am on the couch, in the dark, with a small black gun I had found behind a bus stop a few days back, as if it were given to me.
Under the chin isn't right, I think. In the mouth, upside down, pointing up and back.
After this smoke.
I'm stalling. Scared and relieved both. Close my eyes and remember people. Try to imagine they know I still love them. Try to imagine they will forgive me.
The metal isn't cold anymore. It's warmed in the last few minutes against my skin and I can smell oil.
It doesn't flash before my eyes, it's a slow and burning stream of moments. Of laughing. Of holding. Of love and closeness. Days in the Battenkill, or on the couch, or in bed. In the kitchen or the yard. It's moments of staring at the ocean. Finding small and beautiful rocks in the surf. Macaroni and cheese in bed. It's Arlington St. and a Spider-man costume and a bloodied ear. It's bicycles on the sidewalk. It's "I don't want anything, you've already given me everything I could want." It's Pisgah. It's New Orleans. It's the Gulf of Mexico late at night with a lightning storm in the distance. It's a crowd singing my songs back at me. It's sorrow and loss and disappointment. It's failure and patterns and regret. It's you. And you. And you. And you. And you. And you. On and on.
I'm not crying. Only seeing it all slowly playing out in my mind and smelling the faint oil. Knowing it's over.
Take a drag and set the gun on the table. It makes a clink against the glass and it's nice to not have the weight of it in my hand, running up my arm, anymore.
After this smoke.
I consider sending a few messages. To people I love. To people I've hurt. To people I miss. I choose not to. There is no need to steal these last moments from them. They'll know soon enough. I can do them that kindness.
There is no note. They all know.
I hope they think of me smiling with them. I hope they remember me in our good moments. I hope that they understand. The ridges and bends of the barrell and handle and trigger are highlighted by the streetlamp light and I focus too much on it and I wonder why finishing the smoke is important at all.
Another drag.
A final moment of reflection? Of silence? Of respect for the opportunity to live at all?
I am thankful for the opportunity. I am thankful for the people I have loved and who have loved me. I am thankful for the moments I've been a part of, the joy and heartbreak and anger and peace. The sheer overwhelming beauty of the world around me. The world that for a short time was ours.
I butt the cigarette in a cup of water and stare again at the gun.
After that smoke, right?
I pick it up and it feels heavier now. Pulling me toward the floor.
Now.
Now.
Now.
Sit back. Now.
I don't sit back. I lean forward, look out the window, open my mouth, and upside down, pointing up and back, I push the barrell into my mouth. It pulls at my dry lips and scrapes my teeth and now I can taste oil. I stare out the window and inhale and force myself to see you again in my mind. And you. And you. And you. And you. On and on. I just don't want to be away from you.
I don't want to be away from you.
I am crying now, silently and fully.
A car drives somewhere through the neighborhood. A breeze moves soft through leaves and branches. Downstairs I can hear Barb moving around her living room.
I love you.
I don't think about it, I pull on the trigger.
It clicks, locks, and I freeze. Everything stops. No wind. No cars. No light. Only for a moment, before I understand what happened, dropping the gun to the couch and in a wave, a drain, of anything inside of me, I collapse weeping into the cushions.
Ashamed. Afraid. Alone. Angry.
I sleep there on the couch. In the morning, on the way to work, I stop at a park on the water and throw the gun as far out into the river as I can, and a part of me regrets it immediately. But if it was time it would have fired.
I stand at the water for a long time and am late for work.
