Joke

Killing myself
Is a joke
That's punchline I can never get right

I tell it at parties

By parties
I mean
Any time I am near a human being who speaks to me

The words tumble out
Afraid
Bitter
Confused
Desperate
They crave the open air
After years of
two am crying and four am sleeplessness and six am suicide attempts and eight am self harm and ten am exhaustion and twelve pm starvation and two pm despair and four pm panic attacks and six pm self hatred and eight pm self pity and ten pm desperation and 12 am
silence

The room fills with the kind of silence
That swallows your marrow and kidneys
Replaces them with broken moths that can barely beat their wings
And a dragging blackness that
Slows
Time
And

No one laughs except me.

There is nothing funny about being alive
I take my joy
In the inevitability of death

After seven years of trying
Still
I never get the punchline right

Rarely
Someone else laughs too
And together we sit
uncomfortable
In our bodies that are so very much alive
With our minds that so very much don't want to be
And wait
For death
For life
For another human being
To come to our party
To speak to us
And before we dare to voice our joke
--interrupt

"There is no punchline"