Every morning I write a suicide note
and then throw it away.
How do I explain the inherent freedom
that comes from writing,
I cannot go on or, this world is too much?
Because it is.
Hansel says he cannot, will not live with me
or with any reminder
of the day our father abandoned us
or the night we ran,
our screams licking the tree line like flames
from the witch’s house.
So each morning I write a suicide note,
ask the one question I want answered –
Where will I shelter
when his dry spirit leaves this earth?
Addy Robinson McCulloch
Addy Robinson McCulloch was a finalist for the 2014 Fairy Tale Review inaugural poetry contest and received a Best of the Net nomination from vox poetica in 2014. A graduate of Duke University, Addy is a freelance writer and editor whose clients include Pearson Education and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her work has appeared in publications such as Redheaded Stepchild; 234journal; the Iodine Review; What Matters, an anthology of poetry from Jacar Press; and Get Out of My Crotch: 21 Writers Respond to America’s War on Women’s Rights and Reproductive Health.
Artwork: Abigail Larson, “All of These Words”
Website: http://www.abigaillarson.com/
Gingerbread House Lit Mag 