Why do we overlive—mocked with death, and
Lengthened out to Deathless Pain? Gladly would we
Meet our Mortality, our Sentence, and be earth Insensible!²
Nothing is left for us but to Snuff ourselves out: to Shatter the
Failed formation of our life, Toss it at the feet of snickering gods.³
To be, or not to be? That is the question: to Die, to Sleep,
No more—and by a sleep to say we end the Heartache
And the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to—
‘Tis a Consummation devoutly to be wished!⁴
Poison is life—so the powerful
Antidote is Death.⁵
I measure every Grief I meet with narrow, probing, eyes—
I wonder if it Weighs like mine—or has an easier size;
I wonder if it Hurts to live—and if they have to Try, and
Whether, could they Choose between—it would not be: to Die.⁶
I know a hundred ways to Die I’ve often thought I’d Try one:
Lie down beneath a Motor Truck some day when standing by one—
I know some Poison I could Drink I’ve often thought I’d Taste it,
But Mother bought it for the Sink and Drinking it would Waste it.⁷
Suicide Note: the calm, cool face of the river
Asked me for a Kiss—⁸
Every time we leave the house: it’s Suicide—
And each time we Return: a Failed Attempt—⁹
The skin of our wrists are so defenseless: what
We want to Kill is elsewhere, Deeper, more
Secret, a whole lot harder to get at …¹⁰
¹ David Foster Wallace, Suicide as a Sort of Present
² John Milton, Paradise Lost
³ Hermann Hesse tr. Joachim Neugroschel, Siddhartha
⁴ William Shakespeare, Hamlet
⁵ Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rappaccini’s Daughter
⁶ Emily Dickinson, It’s Such a Little Thing
⁷ Edna St. Vincent Millay, I Know a Hundred Ways to Die
⁸ Langston Hughes, Suicide Note
⁹ Maya Abu Al-Hayyat tr. Fady Joudah, What If
¹⁰ Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar