Wake-Up Call

Do you know what it's like

to hear, for the first time

after knowing someone

for nearly five decades,

how they sat in silent aloneness,

gun in hand, wondering if ending it all –

or at least trying to by pulling the trigger –

was the lesser of bad options;

and then to have this revelation

take you back 18 years

to a phone conversation

with another near-and-dear one

who was 200+ miles away,

listening to his tears as he also

sits with a gun in his lap,

calling to say goodbye;

talking him down from that

emotional bridge with words

that flowed from who-knows-where;

which transports you back

nearly 40 years to that morning

you came downstairs, surely feeling

nothing but your teenage oats,

until you see her lying

lifeless in the bed,

illegible note scribbled

on the bedside table

beside the empty pill bottle?

I pray to God you don't.

It is a weight no smaller

than Atlas imagined,

bearable only by

a gift utterly unfathomable;

but a weight surely much less

than the one felt by those

whose fingers caress the trigger

or twist the bottle-top.

These are the moments

when you realize gravity

is something Grace can

cast off, and angel's wings,

feathers she can put on.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins