Reader,

                                        stay alive
                                   stay alive stay a
                                live stay alive stay a
                                 live stay alive stay
                                    alive stay alive
                                        stay alive

                                        stay alive
                                   stay alive stay a
                                live stay alive stay a
                                  live stay alive stay
                                      alive stay alive
                                              stay alive
                                                stay ali
                                                ve sta
                                               y al
                                              ive
            ­                                 |-/

A flow, a pen, an ink stained palm.
A life, a story, all gone wrong.
A spark of hope in the night, maybe?
No, your hope is grammatically incorrect.

"This is where your sentence could have ended
but it didn't," see?
Nonetheless, it wants so desperately to end.
An incomplete thought, a fragment -
A fragmented existence with an expired due date.

Can you pick up the forlorn pieces?
Use your calloused fingers to avoid getting cut.
You continued the sentence,
But you used the semicolon wrong.

What is this great fruit?
All of life's bounty, in this one root.

The apple of the earth;
From the dirt it doth birth.

Bake, roast, mash,
All else goes to the trash.

The potato's taste is so fine,
Its versatility? Just divine.

*****, fries, tossed in pies,
Potatoes are the best, no compromise.

A mark that an author uses to end their story but chooses not to,
A reference for someone who wants to end their life but chooses not to,
A person who reminds the someone to just keep going.
If you have no other reason to stay on earth let me give you a reason,
Don’t end your story, write it and keep writing it. Write what you would want to read,
Write what you would want your parents, children, and siblings to read.
There is something or someone being your semicolon because you’re still here, so stay and keep writing your story.
Be someone’s reason to live. Remind them their life on earth matters and to keep going. Reminders are free and lives are priceless. 💙

Almost a year ago.
“If suicide is not a sin,
I might not be writing this now.”

Now
“I want to rest now, I don’t think I can still fight.
I’m giving up now. But I’m scared. Can I have a hug?. Before I go to rest”

We were both writers.
You with a fountain pen and moleskin notebook  
I with anything I could scrawl on -tears always just at the edges of me
and in this way we began to author our life together.
We put pen to paper that first night
drunk on gas station liquor and on not feeling so alone.
Our hungry bodies filled page after page
with what I would come to believe
would be my magnum opus.

In your wedding vows you said that we would
“work together to fill the pages with
conflict, desire, pain and all that makes life real
so that we can appreciate all that makes life good”
You were not much of a co-author though
preferring instead to write alone at night while I slept
How many times did I revisit a previous chapter
only to find that you had introduced a new character
or a dark and bizarre plot twist without my knowledge?
Eventually these discoveries would become as predictable
as the indignant denials
eventual apologies
and promises that would always follow them

lather, rinse, repeat

Over years these edits and additions
would knock the air from my lungs
completely shaking my confidence as a writer.
With cramping hands I would try to rewrite the bad parts
though my scribble marks did little to mask the words beneath.
Words that once had flowed as easily and copiously as I had for you
now came only in fits and starts
each new chapter torn from the bones of my bones.
How many times did the ten eyes we wrote in
watch as writers block turned to writers rage
producing furious missives that would tear holes in pages without warning?
Still even as my teeth-torn hands turned arthritic
I couldn’t seem to just put down the ******* pen
Because it was our story
and because I loved it
and because I loved us
and because I loved you.

I ended our story with a semicolon
Its already faded form staring up from my ring finger
a reminder that I could have chosen to end my story but didn’t.
You once told me that a good author always employs irony
and I have always been a better writer than you’ve given me credit

                                                   ;