Why can’t I end my life just when I choose

without regard for others   ̶  my carping clan,

false friends and those nosey next-door neighbours?

Why can’t I vanish without trace  ̶   no 999,

blue flashing lights, dogs sniffing woods for clues

I won’t have left, and pushy, news-starved Press?

Now I have reached the brink and think, ‘Stuff it!

Enough’s enough!’ that should mean it’s enough.

It should be possible in this computer age,

to click on Exit or Delete and quit,

purging my profile from all memory.

I shouldn’t have to flirt with fate, or stock-pile pills,

or hone a knife,  or drop a careless match or two,

or buy a gun – where would I, a woman, buy a gun?

Learn how to load and aim it  ̶  and not miss?

Birth was slick, a kick against the womb,

a glide from gloom to freedom with a cry,

no comfort-caul to curl back into. Why?

Water, the staff of life and stuff of death,

laps at my thighs, licking life’s raw wounds,

its current coaxing me out of my depth,

into the arms of a brighter horizon.

My mind is not disturbed  ̶  it’s clearer than

the element I’m in and just as cold.

Three fearless steps are all it needs for me

to take and shake oblivion by the hand,

but, dare I trust the ocean’s fickleness?

Sink all my faith in its destructive power?

updated by @americymru: 11/24/16 05:59:30PM