I got in my car and drove west,
                                        police song playing on the radio and sirens, wailing, on my left,
only to stop my car five feet in front of
a dead cow,
                    gutted and rotten,
bones pecked clean and free by that which I ran from.
The air around it was dead,
heavy on my tongue like fresh rainfall,
and I was twelve years old, in a bathtub,
                 trying to figure out
                                         how to die.

But then lightning struck and
                                             my power went out and
              the cow caught fire.
And then I caught fire.

I couldn’t answer his questions because
there was still ash in my throat
and I was still choking. I was choking.

He offered me a glass of water but
                                             that only made mud pour
      over my tongue and through
my lungs,
            clogged pores and sinuses.
So now I was drowning in tar and
                                        a hand brushed mine, so I grabbed it.
                      I couldn’t tell which way was up.
I got pulled deeper.

I died in the lake but they still asked me questions.
I died in that lake and got stopped when I tried to leave.