“on the 8 month anniversary of my last suicide attempt, i tell my mother i am happy to be alive”
i am brimming with unmentioned things
that won’t stay in my mouth.
i look past myself and see more
than me. for maybe the first time,
what i want is what i have.
there is no language here. only stars.
i didn’t know love could be so warm
but now i’m more of a fire
than i ever knew i could be.
“Tuesday”
Today I’m so glad that I didn’t die last week. Just now
I met a man who believed in me & I wore a floral top
with matching floral tennis shoes & good lord,
I looked like a fresh bouquet of roses.
What good are roses if they’re dead?
When I say I actually feel alive again, I don’t mean
I’m merely living. I mean I’m alive
as in – holy shit – my heart is the size
of the empty Quiznos on the corner
that went out of business.
Oh, there are several lives I could lead,
but I just want one. I just want mine.
My god –
what a thing:
to stay alive
after trying to die.
Rachel Tanner is a queer, disabled writer from Alabama whose work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Bandit Fiction, Saw Palm, Memoir Mixtapes, and elsewhere. She tweets @rickit.
Serotonin 