Things Sad People Shouldn’t Have

Guns, knives, scissors, razorblades, letter openers, shards of light bulb, anything sharp. Cars, garages. Gas furnaces, gas stoves. Rubbing alcohol, real alcohol, rat poison, bleach. Pills that don’t make sad people vomit or pass out partway through the orange bottle. Bathtubs, toasters, hairdryers, clock radios. Closet bars, jump ropes, dog leashes, belts. Bedroom doors that close.

I’d say bedroom doors that lock, but my brother didn’t lock it. He just pushed his door shut.

Dogs that need walked. Cats that shit in litter boxes. Plants that need watered, even cactuses. Dads with new fishing poles and a plan to go to the pay lake. Moms who drag sad people out of bed and drive them an hour to an out-of-state college. Sad people are much too sad to get up or drive, and they flunked out of the university twenty minutes away. Sisters who are already going through horrible breakups. Sisters who are trying to finish school. Online Christmas lists that get emailed to sisters after August 30, 2012, has passed and the sisters never want to see a Christmas again. Grandmothers who scream in their granddaughters’ arms in pink wingback chairs when they hear their grandsons are dead.

Bodies that have to be buried or burned up.