Affirmations

Never once has Sarah contemplated suicide.

Even as she sits down after work and collapses in her bed, eager for tomorrow to be just as over as today, she doesn’t consider the possibility of forcing her own non-existence.

In her weekly obligations with lingering high school friends, the few like her who never moved away, she listens attentively to their banal half-truths and absurd self-justifications and doesn’t think of drowning in her own blood.

She doesn’t ponder the various kinds of death or the innumerable implements that could with moderate effort do her in, even when she stares at them straight on.

scissors, toasters, marbles, string, bleach, glass

As she looks in the mirror at her dark, unattractive skin, somehow reflected in such a shiny object, she can’t conceive of any possible way out, nor does she want to. Her lazy boyfriend claims to love her in order to reap her benefits, and that gives enough purpose to her life to assuage the inevitable conclusion of her own conclusion.

Her mother strangled herself last year, but Sarah couldn’t imagine why. How was death any different from a wasted life, except shorter?

She brushes her hair, easing out the curls. She doesn’t imagine a way to dispose of her body after breath has left it. A little makeup and she’s almost pretty, and she doesn’t want to die. She chooses a nice, professional dress and she doesn’t want to die.

She visits her father.