# Suicide Plans I have made elaborate plans for my suicide, planned it all down to the smallest detail— which rope, which beam, which hour of the night when the street lamps flicker and die, when even the insomniacs turn to sleep, when the world becomes a tomb of silence. I have chosen the music that will play, the words I will leave behind, the way my body will hang like a question mark against the darkness, curved and final and unanswerable. I have imagined my mother finding me, the scream that will tear through her throat, the way her knees will buckle, how my father will stand in the doorway, unable to cross the threshold into that terrible room. I have written the letter a hundred times, each word a small death, each sentence a goodbye I cannot quite deliver. I have rehearsed my exit the way an actor rehearses a role he will play only once. But then— the morning comes with its ordinary light, a friend calls, the tea grows warm in the cup, and I realize I have been planning not my death, but my escape. Not the rope, but the release. Not the silence, but the sound of my own voice saying: I am still here. I am still here.