When the Editor Asks if the Suicidal Ideation is a Persona
in his rejection email I appreciate it honestly
I do but I wish he was right that that
endless tunnel was just a persona a thought
exercise I wish I didn’t when I fell feel
like I was falling forever he says he lost
the best man at his wedding and too many students
to suicide his concern about me is of course
centered on himself his tone is of course
condescending I want to tell him he didn’t lose them
to suicide he lost them to themselves
he says he hopes I’m getting help and I am
but nothing ever fully pulls the roots out of the ground
no pills no therapy no love next to me in the bed
I want to tell him the roots can never be pulled up
but every morning in the wet light I kneel down
and pull the new growth hold that green in my hands
looking down at how far I let it grow before
throwing it as hard as I can into the woods
Elegy for a Lodestar
that blinked in the night like a lighthouse
running out of wood to burn I was
on the ocean four years at that point
living off rainwater and fish shitting over
the bow into my own reflection
and every night I looked into the sky
for you lodestar I asked you which way
to turn the mast and you just laughed
I had dreams of a fruit tree its branches
heavy in their color and every step
I took up the ladder the ladder grew
another rung my hand reached toward
the fruit which wasn’t a fruit it was
you lodestar glittering so close
as I climbed my hand reached until
I awoke the morning light revealing
my world nothing more than
endless horizons and when I called
to you lodestar when I burned
my maps for warmth I thought I could
depend on you the clouds moving
in the night like continents on the map
turned to ash the map I chose to burn
thinking hoping I could count on you
but lodestar you are not the only star
in the sky so I pick a new one
one brighter more reliable each night
I say I will follow it until it burns out
or I reach dry land I will follow it
like a vein on my arm or the lines
on my palms I trust my hands
for once I trust my own hands
William Fargason is the author of Velvet (Northwestern University Press, 2024) and Love Song to the Demon-Possessed Pigs of Gadara (University of Iowa Press, 2020), winner of the 2019 Iowa Poetry Prize and the 2020 Florida Book Award in Poetry (Gold Medal). His poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, Narrative, and elsewhere. He has an MFA in poetry from the University of Maryland and a PhD in poetry from Florida State University. He lives with himself in College Park, Maryland.