[Content warning: suicidal ideation]
Diana
when the suicidal child miraculously wants to live again
the meds make my spit electric.
live wire between two mouths or my head and the bathroom floor drool pooling like a delta.
water spilling
body spilling
how mama taught me
not to.
good girls water growing things
but being good won’t make the flowers bloom in january.
if i cut my own cord
i am the doctor, the doula, the reaper, the reaped—
i delight in simple pleasures / like a pill’s sugar coat / the full chromatic range of my friends’ laughter /
sweet sap / the way bodies divine their own stickiness when we’re dancing to rico in a pink pink dorm room;
i forget again.
for someone who wants to die, i sure am bad at it.
see, the trick is to imagine you are your mother-friend picking your head off the bathroom floor /
to be bad at remembering / bad at / oblivion / to be a scaredy cat / to be bad at
remembering /
to mother your body / / to trick the mirror
/ to have a package arriving on a thursday in february,
one you have to sign for
this record you always wanted to dance to.
Diana is a twenty-one-year-old playwright, filmmaker, and poet writing about ghosts, mothers, and the beauty of being (still, present, alive). They're thinking about art as a medium for community healing and imagining the liberated futures we deserve. They can be found navigating snack aisles at 2 a.m., trying to get a good deal on gummy bears. • Photo by Kimberly Batdorf