Suicide Underground

Everyone dated the demise of our neighborhood
from the suicides of the Lisbon girls.
People saw their clairvoyance in the wiped out elms,
and the harsh sunlight.

Some thought the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls
pointed to a simple refusal to accept the world
as it was handed down to them.
So full of flaws.

But the only thing we are certain of
after all these years,
is the insufficiency of explanation.
(Obviously, doctor, you've never been a 13 year old girl.)

The Lisbon girls were
13- Cecilia
14- Lux
15- Bonnie
16- Mary
and 17- Therese.

No one could understand how
Mrs Lisbon and Mr Lisbon,
our math teacher,
had produced such beautiful creatures.

From that time on
The Lisbon house began to change.
Almost everyday
and even when she wasn't keeping an eye on Cecilia,
Lux would suntan on a towel,
wearing a swimsuit that caused the knife sharpener
to give her a 15 minute demonstration for free.

The only reliable boy who got to know Lux
was Trip Fontaine.
Who only 18 months before the suicides,
had emerged from baby fat,
to the delight of girls and mothers alike.

But few anticipated it would be so drastic.
The girls were pulled out of school,
and Mrs Lisbon shut the house in maximum security isolation.

The girls' only contact with the outside world
was through the catalogs they ordered,
that started to fill the Lisbon's mailbox
with pictures of high-end fashions and brochures for exotic vacations.

Unable to go anywhere,
the girls traveled in their imaginations.
To gold tipped Siamese temples, or past an old man with a leaf broom,
tiding a moss-carpeted speck of Japan.

And Cecilia hadn't died.
She was a bride in Calcutta.

Collecting everything we could of theirs,
we couldn't get the Lisbon girls out of our minds.
But they were slipping away.
The colours of their eyes were fading
along with exact locations of moles and dimples.

From 5 they had become 4,
and they were all living in the dead,
Becoming shadows.

We would have lost them completely
if the girls hadn't contacted us.

Lux was the last to go.
Fleeing from the house we had forgot to stop at the garage.

After the suicide free-for-all,
Mr and Mrs. Lisbon gave up any attempt to lead a normal life.
They had Mr Hedly pack up the house,
selling what furniture he could in a garage sale.

Everyone went just to look.
Our parents did not buy used furniture,
and they certainly didn't buy furniture tainted by death.

We of course took the family photos that were put out with the trash.
Mr. Lisbon put the house on the market,
and it was sold to a young couple from Boston.

It didn't matter in the end how old they had been.
Or that they were girls.
But only that we had loved them.
And they hadn't heard us calling..still do not hear us,
calling them out of those rooms.
Where they went to be alone for all time.

Alone in suicide.
Which is deeper then death.
And where we will never find the pieces,
to put them back together.