On Tom’s Suicide and the Time He Cried on Speaker Phone

In the middle of the night,   

right before we were leaving to go enjoy ourselves,  

you called searching for justification.  

Not justification for why you would, ultimately,  

end yourself, but justification  

that what you would do was valid—validation, yes.  

Validation was what I believe you were searching for. 

To end it all.  

  

You called someone that knew you, that suffered with you. 

You poured out your heart and you heard    

                                                                                   Oh, Tom. 

  

  

I was just there. I was just listening on speaker phone. 

I didn't say anything. Should I have interrupted? 

No. It was goodbye. But 

  

you couldn’t hear the compassion  

over the sound of your own pain. So far down  

at the bottom of the well your pleads were echoes,  

and tenderness could never reach you... 

  

  

I sit here and think about it, often actually, but— 

especially now—and 

I understand.

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