So cold

Today, I felt I was home. Images rippled across the surface of the water as birds sang tunefully next to me. I closed my eyes and saw the sun through my eyelids. Yet, I knew I wasn’t home. The sun gave no warmth, so I opened my eyes. The shapes across the rippling lake were just my classmates reflected on the top of a piano, which had begun to warp with age. The tune of the birds became recognizable as Beethoven, the music for which the soprano next to me was holding in her hands. My eyelids deceived me. It was only the stage lights. For one fleeting moment, I felt I belonged. Then the cold opened my eyes.

Suicide's Note

The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

-Langston Hughes