top of page

Unfinished Exit

Claudia Wysocky

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.  

A desperate attempt to  

capture something that's already  gone.  

But maybe that's why we keep writing,  

keep searching for  

the right words,  

because in this world where everything is  

temporary,  

poetry is our only chance at  

immortality.  

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.

2024 Scribere©. All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced without prior permission.

Scribere assumes no responsibility for contributor plagiarism.

bottom of page