{"id":245,"date":"2011-05-02T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=245"},"modified":"2011-05-02T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-02T13:00:00","slug":"emma-eden-ramos-letter-to-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/emma-eden-ramos-letter-to-suicide\/","title":{"rendered":"Emma Eden Ramos' 'Letter to Suicide'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Letter to Suicide (an old friend)<\/span>


We go way back. <\/span>
And if I remember correctly, it was you who followed me home that night in cold April. <\/span>
The frost covered the half-sprung tulips; I laughed at their crowning corpse heads.<\/span>
The kitchen window, still mostly shattered from when dad decided Goulash was no good on
                                                                                  a Sunday. <\/span>
Goulash, is that The Lord's food? Where were the Salmon Fillets, the Mango Salad? <\/span>
Mom never cried. Scout barked; was electrocuted by a hair dryer two days later. <\/span>

Passing the mostly gone window, I heard the sound of crackling egg fat when <\/span>
yoke hits the butter laden pan. <\/span>
One crackle,<\/span>
no pop. <\/span>
No smell.<\/span>
“Fried eggs in April? Won't The Lord be mad? What'll we hide for those snot <\/span>
nosed kiddies, pops?” <\/span>

I saw him then,<\/span>
through the almost totally shattered window. <\/span>
I untied the erect rope from around the ceiling fan. <\/span>
Goulash would be safe on Sundays. The eggs? Untouched.<\/span>

We met first then<\/span>
                          and<\/span>
Later when Maribeth decided to go the Woolf way (giant pebbles and all).<\/span>
She had, after all, graduated with an English degree.<\/span>

So I'm writing you now like an Irishman signaling the banshee. <\/span>
I am tired old friend. Tired and sick. <\/span>
 <\/span>
Cancer has me most of the time.<\/span>
When it isn't that, it's my obstructed arteries. <\/span>
Could also be the Cirrhosis, AIDS, or my ever intensifying personality <\/span>
disorder.<\/span>
So be a dear, would you? Please? <\/span>
Thanks.<\/span>



*Emma Eden Ramos<\/span> is a writer from New York City. Her work has <\/span>appeared in BlazeVOX<\/span>, Calliope Nerve, The Citron Review, The Legendary, The <\/span><\/span>Fringe Magazine, Down in the Dirt Magazine<\/span>, and a few other journals. <\/span>

This piece first appeared in Calliope Nerve<\/span><\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letter to Suicide (an old friend)We go way back. And if I remember correctly, it was you who followed me home that night in cold April. The frost covered the half-sprung tulips; I laughed at their crowning corpse heads.The kitchen window, still mostly shattered from when dad decided Goulash was no good on                                                                                   a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}