so damn contagious..

Zoe has short hair and a name that's shorter. She has skin the same color as paper and eyes the same color as dirt. Zoe has a family and a bedroom and a journal. Zoe has a life and a body and a smile.

But Zoe is lying on pavement and her heart is lying four feet away from her. A few seconds before, she said, 'this won't hurt.' She said, 'this can't hurt worse than anything we've felt before.' And Zoe, she walked across the street but only a couple of her bones made it to the other side.

Alice is watching and her brain is telling her to run and it's telling her hands to shake and it's telling her eyes to close but she's frozen and Zoe is lying there and Alice sees the blood but she doesn't move. She wants to say: I bet it hurt, Zoe. You fucking deserved it.

Instead she just whispers, 'oh my god.'

Zoe's dirt eyes are still closed exactly like they were right before she stepped off the curb. She's thinking: I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. But her body is saying: You're dead. You're dead. You're dead. And that's what she wanted right? That's what everyone wanted.

Alice has an ambulance light smile and she's laughing because Zoe had this planned and Zoe, she finally got what she wanted. Alice, she's laughing because she's standing there alone on the sidewalk and because she's not the one the paramedics are peeling off the road. She's laughing because she's imaging Zoe laughing from where ever she is and not where her body is now.

Zoe has bones in a million little pieces and that's nothing new. She's always been held together by the last drop of glue or the last strand of string. The paramedics, they're lifting what's left of Zoe into the ambulance. They're saying, 'She was such a beautiful girl.'

And Alice, she's screaming and she says, 'She's still fucking beautiful. Don't you see? That's what she's always wanted.'

The paramedics nod their heads and try not to think about how they'll find Alice next week. They'll say, 'suicides are contagious, you know.'

Zoe, she's dead and dead and dead but she's okay. She swears she's okay even though no one is listening and no one can hear her over the sirens.

Alice, she's walking into the road and she says, 'This won't hurt.' She says, 'This can't hurt worse than anything I've felt before.'