Poem by Aida Bode

Indifference

Tell me, what does
the word suicide make you feel?
Does it make your spine shiver,
your knees weak,
your limbs disconnected,
your mind somehow able to see void
and your eyes lost in the idea of end.

Does it become a closed circle
inside your stomach which doesn’t
stop spinning, a hick up without breath,
last bite of life choked in your throat,
a twister without a hill to stumble,
yet clinging to death as
oxygen to flames, dust to water,

But you don’t worry about what it makes
you feel, it’s a fantasy that another lived.
All you have to do is plead innocent.
Your decision to cling despite
who’s scratched, who’s pulled away,
who’s thrown off the line-
blameless, pure, perfect.

Yet, the shivers travel their road
on your spine and don’t care
for your dead conscience.
Life is like that, it reveals itself instinctively,
a weed with purpose exposing
the true plants in a field,
some even call it wilderness,
others call it the judgment day.

Aida Bode is an Albanian writer, poet and translator. She was born in Korca, Albania and has published her earlier writings in the local newspaper of the city. Her recent work has been published in newspapers of the Albanian media, while her poems, “S.O.P.A” and “Fall” have been published by The River Muse and Dr. Hurley’s Snake Oil Cure.