let_it_out ovenbird You haven’t even made it to class to give us our assignments for the semester. Instead you organize a conference call with me and two other students. I take the call from the backseat of a car while I’m being driven along a mountain highway that overlooks the Pacific. Your instructions for our term papers devolve into a confessional monologue. You say you haven’t been able to get out of bed, nevermind dragging yourself to the front of a classroom at a prestigious university. “I think about dying all the time,” you say. “Who even HAS thoughts like that.” “I do,” I whisper. The other two girls on the call say nothing. “I do,” I say a little louder. “I have those kinds of thoughts all the time.” And then I tell you all the ways I’ve imagined disappearing and I tell you how I survived. I tell you that the thoughts don’t mean you’re wrong inside, but that sometimes the world feels like wearing a wet bathing suit that’s rank with mildew and you can’t get warm and all you want to do is peel it off so you don’t have to feel the way it sucks at your skin. Wanting things to end doesn’t mean you want to die, it just means that you don’t want to live like THIS. I’m watching the water slide west as I speak. I pause. And there’s a long silence that I’m afraid to fill. I listen for the sound of breathing, but there’s nothing. Just an emptiness that tastes like mothballs. “Hello?” I say softly. But there’s no response. Everyone hung up a long time ago. 260419 what's it to you? who go blather from