John LaPine

When autocorrect turns “suitcases” into “suicide,” I wonder if that’s apt

Today, I packed my life back into the boxes it came in,
four heavy plastic totes, & two suicides I’ll take with me
on the plane in two weeks. One suicide for clothes & a suicide
for pictures of my family, several pairs of shoes
& my asthma medications, which keep me
breathing despite wildfire smoke, tear gas, & pandemic.

I check my two 50 pound suicides in at the airport.
The agent weighs my suicides & slaps a label on them.
Asks if there’s anything explosive or flammable in my suicides. No,
I say. Anything perishable? No. She rolls my suicides down the conveyor,
& says They’ll be available at your final destination. 

The ritual these days is checking the Internet to see
if the air is breathable today. Today, the air is breathable.
Yesterday, it was not, smelled like a campfire, I think how the survivors
must breathe a sad memory. How smell can take you back to a place.
Today, I can keep my windows open.

Meanwhile, I’ve got my face mask, & my personal item, & my travel size
suicide, which will hang above my head in the plane.
The thing about memories & fire is that they both leave scars.
I imagine my new life on an island, where the earth is not
burnscarrred, at least not yet, where the ocean stares
you back in all directions, a slow vastness. I imagine
the burnt plastic & household cleaners, how the sea will rise

to meet me in just a few decades on this beach. Until then, I’ll pack
my suicides right. I’ll fill them with socks rolled tightly, & pray the pictures
stay unscratched. I’ll prep for my departure, & hope these suicides aren’t too heavy
when I roll them out of my empty apartment & into the car myself.

John LaPine (he/him/any) is a gay biracial poet, teacher and essayist living and learning in Minneapolis. His work can be found in Midwestern Gothic, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Lammergeier Magazine and elsewhere, and his chapbook of essays, "An Unstable Container," is due out from Bull City Press.