c/w: suicide attempt
Breakfast was three spoonfuls of Nutella.
I hadn’t done dishes in over a month.
There was a spot of dried cat puke on the couch.
I spent the day sitting on it and staring
at a mostly-empty fifteen-dollar bottle of red
on the table. I don’t really have a table,
just some slabs of Ikea wood piled
against a window so I can pretend
to like the sun sometimes. Instead
of going outside, I bought some D
supplements when the doctor explained
I needed the vitamin, not the body part.
I got a contraceptive shoved
up my vagina anyway, hoping my lack of will
to live was purely the result of too much
estrogen. But I had been off the pill for weeks,
so I couldn’t blame the excess hormones
for pushing me right up to the edge
of the bridge at Balboa Park. All I wanted
was a long walk to clear my head,
then I was hunched over the ledge
meant to keep the innocent from falling,
but not tall enough to prevent the rest of us
from jumping. The 163 freeway was to my right,
and some shrubbery to my left.
In the event of it being necessary,
I would have to jump as far to the left
as possible to ensure no unsuspecting
drivers got injured. I leaned further, just to see
(I swear), when a person materialized, seemingly
from thin air, and asked if they could talk
to me about God. I figured why not
and shifted my weight away from the ledge.
The conversation itself was lost on me
as I am a staunch agnostic, but I’ll admit
I somehow made it home safe that night.
Anastasia DiFonzo (she/her) is a San Diego based poet with two cats, Klaus and Lucy. Her work can be found in Anti-Heroin Chic and Gnashing Teeth Publishing. She is on Instagram at @anastasia.difonzo.