This is a revision of an earlier version of the poem. I had to
fix up what I had written earlier because in places it was vague or
unclear… or the wording was just not smooth and it didn’t flow like
I wanted. This also follows the edits, feedback, suggestions of my
co-editor for Word Salad Poetry Magazine, Jean Jones. I think you might
have suggested that the last stanza be removed.

Usually, I feel that my longer poems need to be majorly edited down
but it feels like this works and that the content fits together. Other
poems of great length, written by me, often are better when changed
converted into 2 or more different poems. I hope I have been able to
make everything I say here into one poem that works.

When I heard that my cousin committed suicide

It was some time last year,
I forget when,
that I heard that my cousin
had committed suicide.

I don’t know what made me think of this
now,
other than those words
I heard today;
someone was explaining about death
just being all natural -
neither good nor bad.

People deal with death in different ways.

The Gnostics believed that this world
this existence here,
was evil and ruled by an evil god.

In their thinking
heaven was the only place
where God held dominion,
the only place where anything good
could exist.

I don't know about that;
I've never known anything
besides this reality,
this world.

Death is the great enigma,
hidden in complete secrecy,
shrouded in mystery,
the place where no one,
no one in existence now,
has ever gone.

Having not gone there,
having never seen death personally,
it always has seemed to me,
to be like
an illusion…
something not real or possible.

Perhaps this way of thinking,
denying the reality and existence of death,
is just a coping mechanism that I use,
for dealing with the unspeakable.

I’ve turned to horror stories
not because of some curiosity about death
but because in doing so,
I could keep it in the realm of the fictional.

I certainly never held that view
that death was natural
or normal -
neither good nor bad.
Death is completely and totally
alien to any experience I’ve ever had.

It seems more like
Death is the first evil,
the reason there is evil
and fear.

Death is often personified as a grim reaper -
to me it is a
dark, shadowy entity,
devoid of any humanity
or compassion.

Yet for some,
there must be something
seductive about Death,
perhaps hypnotically seductive…
some people clearly see Death
in ways that I cannot.

I believe that
were it not for death,
the Devil would be nothing…
nothing more than a silly
taunter or tempter,
like a disobedient little brat.
When I heard that my cousin
had committed suicide,
last year,
I had to know how she did it,
what method she used,
because that would be the only way
I could make sense of what I was being told.

When my sister told me what happened,
I wanted to say “No!”
or ask my sister,
if she was sure.

But I didn’t say anything.

I don’t think my cousin really was thinking
about how permanent were her actions
or where she was going,
metaphorically speaking.

I think she must have wanted
to go away,
in her mind,
to escape, or retreat,
to some place of her creation.

But where did she get the idea
that suicide would get her there?

Death offers no hope,
no answers,
no meaning,
no comfort…
only pain,
suffering.

Death is the Devil’s domain…
the enemy of everything
we’ve ever known,
of everything we’ve ever loved,
of everything that’s ever mattered to us.

Wherever there is suffering,
loss
and grief
there Evil is
personified,
as a man, perhaps?
Or the Devil?
or Demon?
or just call it
Evil,
with a capital ‘E’…
agent of destruction
and lies.

I still don’t understand,
how my cousin could have thought
she’d get where she wanted to go
by committing suicide.

Bruce Whealton February, 2009

Revised on March 22nd