Statistics

It's midnight

I recall a statistic that someone in the US commits suicide every fourteen minutes

103 suicides per day

It's a minute shy of a quarter past midnight

And I wonder who is quietly sinking into their death

A peaceful death of pills and liquor

It's two minutes short of half past midnight

And I hear the cry of a child

Awakened by the sound of the demon who cursed the life out of his father

With a gunshot to the temple

It's three minutes shy of a quarter until 1am

And I can feel the splash of a young woman plunging to her end

During a midnight swim with death

She thought, “I can finally fly” and couldn't finish her next thought

It's four minutes short of one in the morning

And a chill goes down my spine

“What if I'm that next statistic,” I think

“What if I'm that 'fourteen minutes?'”

What if I don't make it to one in the morning?

What if this is the end?

And so I stick the blade deep in, and I think to myself,
“I better be that fourteen minutes.”