Erica Leslie Weidner

“triptych for a dozen eggs”

TRUTH: the day before,
I bought eggs. and I knew
when I put the eggs away
that I would never eat them,
because even though
it was the day before
I really decided on it,
for weeks I’d been eyeing
the pills in my bottom drawer
and the vodka on the windowsill.
I knew the days were numbered
like the eggs in the carton.

LIE: I had a good plan to kill myself.
I thought that was the truth
until I told my therapist my plan
and he told me I would have lived,
had I tried. I didn’t. try, I mean.
while I sat in the hospital psychward
emergency waiting room
I thought to myself:
(a) I should have tried,
maybe they wouldn’t have
put me in this waiting room;
(b) it’s insane how I was at
work today and now I’m here,
like it wasn’t that bad a day at work;
and (c) why did I buy eggs?
why did I spend my money
on a dozen cage-free eggs when
I intended to die in a dozen
cage-free hours? and now I’m
in a cage and I’m alive.
damn it, I’m alive.
and the caged hours crawled by
in the hospital psychward
emergency waiting room.

TRUTH: when I moved out
of that horrible little place,
I threw out the eggs, all twelve.
three months since I
bought those damn eggs,
and I never ate a single one.
but I thank them for existing
in a carton in my fridge
for those three months
because seriously, how could I
contemplate suicide
with a fresh dozen eggs?

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Erica Leslie Weidner is based in New Jersey. Her work has appeared most recently in nightshade lit, Plorkology, and Litmora. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of underscore_magazine. When she's not writing, she's at her day job doing badass librarian stuff.