by Lynne Barnes
Today is National Suicide Prevention Day
and I have spent it oblivious
to the day’s significance.
Me, of all people.
and I have spent it oblivious
to the day’s significance.
Me, of all people.
Today was a long stream of stressful things to tame,
hacked computer—my fault—sheesh,
followed by little things going awry all day—
triangulating with roofers and unhappy neighbors,
treating a caffeine-withdrawal migraine,
scanning the people garden
to make sure I’ve not neglected any roses
in this rainstorm of prosaics.
Now it is evening and I am trying
to stop reviewing and complaining.
Now I am breathing in that
medicinal feeling of gratitude.
I am here, not back in my past.
I am overwhelmed
but I care deeply about life.
Swimming through any rough waters
in my life jacket of gratitude,
I pause now at the end of my
bumps-in-the-road day, me, a vet,
calling out to you who might be
slipping under the waves—
I love you, I feel you, please
Call 988!
Author’s note: The poem was written on September 10, National Suicide Prevention Day.
Lynne Barnes is a retired psychiatric nurse and librarian from Georgia who has lived in San Francisco since 1969. Her poetry memoir Falling into Flowers (Blue Light Press, 2017) won the 2017 Goodreads Rainbow Award for Best Gay and Lesbian Poetry and was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award. One of her ongoing gratitudes is occasionally being an accepted contributor to James Penha’s The New Verse News.
