e beauty of the world “... the grass blades you mention... furniture you have placed...” ( 5-6) This person seemingly hopes, as the reader does, for the speaker and wants for her every happiness. The next stanza invites the reader into the speaker’s mind and soul. We learn depression is more than a hate for life, it is something one must experience to be able to relate to, as in line 7: “But suicides have a special language.” This stanza also alludes to the fact that when the speaker is suicidal she refrains from looking at the big picture; instead she focuses on the few bad experiences which drive her that much deeper into depression. The following stanza invites the reader to learn about the suicide attempts of the speaker: “Twice I have simply declared myself, / have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, / have taken on his craft, his magic” (10 - 12). Here the reader learns of the speaker’s two suicide attempts. This stanza also implies the speaker’s anger toward her illness. She associates her depression as the enemy, almost as if depression were the devil in flesh coming to her, haunting her, luring her to death, a death of submission. The fifth stanza, with its vivid images, is exceedingly descriptive in its discussion of the speaker’s means of suicide: “ In this way, heavy and thoughtful, / warmer than oil or water, / I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.” (13-15) First, the reader learns of the speaker’s mental state immediately prior to her attempt at her life- a pensive and sad state. Next we can almost feel the blood, blood which is, “warmer than oil or water”, dripping from her slashed veins. Finally, we envision her sitting idle, nearing death, her complexion dull. The next stanza describes the speaker’s state after she has recovered from one of her suicide attempts. “I did not think of my body at needle point.”...
