We spent the evening
Around the patio table
Over portobello burgers
With avocado and chardonnay
Talking of suicide between bites
When and if it gets so bad
The only way out of the pain
Might be a bullet through the heart
Or maybe the brain
Both would be quick
One to the heart would make very little mess
Since it would stop pumping
Almost immediately
Meriwether Lewis famously
Shot himself in the brain and heart simultaneously
A sort of system redundancy
Or maybe just overkill
Now in our seventies with failing bodies
We ponder the option of
Controlling the terms of our own exit
I suggested possibly an overdose of fentanyl
No mess just a body in endless euphoric sleep
Nods of agreement around the table
One said she would go down to the street
To score some junk from the homeless
So she could OD
With her newfound
Short term sidewalk friends
Though I wonder if living
Through a tortuous ending
Would still be preferable
I would still then be alive after all
Though wondering why
I didn’t get out when I could
Searching for the beauty in the pain
Which has become
The inescapable daily challenge
Tinged with the little bit of joy
That I still am alive