Suicidal ideation, mental illness

Sertraline

I buy the dog a ball that lights. Sometimes she likes to chase
after twilight. I cannot see her on these after-dark runs.

 

Just a loping, floating egg, iridescent. To her, I have commitment
issues. And sure. She isn’t wrong. I give and take, throw

 

and receive. As an experiment, I use a dirty tennis ball
one night. It bounces into the underbrush, but she finds it

 

on the first go. Can she see better in darkness? When I used
to think about killing myself, it was always at night. I imagine

 

that’s normal. Once, doing laundry at nine p.m., I thought hard
about throwing myself down a tall flight of concrete stairs.

 

I didn’t. The reason isn’t important. It was too domestic, all
that sensitive detergent and OxiClean. When we walk back inside,

 

the dog takes the stairs three at a time, one large jump; I love her for this.
I love that I’m here to see it. I love that, in another dimension, I’m not.


Emily Nason is from Columbia, South Carolina, and has an MFA in poetry from the University of Virginia. Her poetry appears in the Kenyon Review, the Georgia Review, the Southern Review, and elsewhere.