Unfinished Exit 

I keep thinking 

about the time in high school 

when you drew 

me 

a map of the city, 

I still have it somewhere. 

It was so easy 

to get lost 

in a place where all the trees 

look the same. 

And now 

every time I see 

a missing person’s poster 

stapled to a pole, 

all I can think is 

that could have been me. 

Missing, 

disappeared. 

But there are no

posters for people 

who just never came back 

from vacation, from college, 

from life.

You haven’t killed yourself 

because you’d have to commit to a 

single exit.

What you wouldn’t give to be your cousin Catherine,

who you watched 

twice in one weekend get strangled nude 

in a bathtub onstage

by the actor who once 

filled your mouth with quarters at 

your mother’s funeral.

The curtains closed and opened again. 

We applauded until 

our hands were sore.

But you couldn’t shake the image of 

her lifeless body,

the way she hung there like a 

marionette with cut strings.

And now every time you try to write a poem, 

it feels like a 

eulogy.

So even though you haven’t 

found the perfect ending yet,

you keep writing. 

For Catherine, for yourself, for all the lost 

souls

who never got their own 

missing person’s poster.

Because as long as there are words on a page,

there is still hope for an unfinished exit 

to find its proper 

ending.