atwood poem
2001-04-25 - 8:56 p.m.
My friend called me on the telephone and said, I’m going to kill myself.
Why? I said.
He’s left me, she said. I have nothing to live for.
All right, I said, how are you going to do it? Pill?
No, she said, that would make me sick. If it doesn’t work, I mean. I can’t stand having my stomach pumped out, it’s humiliating.
Well, a gun then, I said.
Think of the mess, she said. It’s indelible, and I hate loud noise.
Hanging, I said.
You look so awful, she said.
You could say the same of drowning, I said.
Well, I guess that’s that, she said, but what am I going to do, now that he’s left me and I have nothing to live for?
Who told you it has to be for anything? I said. But were you living for him when he was there?
No, she said. I was living in spite of him, I was living against him.
Then you should say, I have nothing to live against, I said.
It’s the same thing, isn’t it? she said.
I said No.
Margaret Atwood
siotd:
Thou pribbling swag-bellied measle.
