Jillian Stacia
Call to the Void
I’m the type of person who can’t stand on the edge of a cliff
and not think about jumping. Screw the view. I’m imagining
the slap of wind, the splatter of brain on the cavern below.
The masseuse says to relax, but I can’t stop picturing
her hands on my neck, the inevitable snap of bone,
the ear-splitting crack of death. How pathetic to die in a spa,
how boringly bourgeois. Blame it on my nervous system,
the way it stands guard against the world, a sad little sentinel
scouting out every threat, every curve of mountain. My body
has caught on, puffs out in hives to protect against
an imaginary enemy. They call it chronically ill, but I call it
paying attention. Give it time. Everything breaks.
It’s hard to feel safe when you’ve never seen peace up close.
I remember breast-feeding my son, the bloom of milk
each time I heard a high-pitched cry. Now I see a cliff
and my muscles clench. A miracle, really. All the things
we do to protect ourselves. The way we’re built to stay alive.
“Dinah Won’t You Blow Your Horn?”
In my Mother-In-Law’s retirement home, an elderly
woman sings “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”
and I want to laugh and cry and die right there
on the polyester red carpet before I myself am sent
to a rickety old house filled with nurses and Clorox
and strawberry Jello topped with sugar-free Cool Whip,
before an emergency button is glued to my door,
before my teeth fall out eating corn on the cob,
before my back is hunched and humped and my ass
cannot be wiped without assistance from a nurse
named Marge who is just trying to put her two sons
through community college, but would really like
to touch less butts if it’s okay with management.
Before my kids resent me and leave me to rot,
and my husband divorces me for a younger woman,
and my liver fails from all that wine. Before all that,
please just let me die right here and now while I’m still
youngish and dewyish and punch drunk on the wildness
of the world. Forget staying alive all the live-long day.
Let me out of this life while I still love it.
Jillian is the author of the upcoming poetry collection, Set the Bone, published by Arcana Poetry Press. She was selected as an Honorable Mention for the 2025 Jack McCarthy Book Prize and short-listed for the 2026 Central Avenue Poetry Prize. She has been nominated for several awards, including 2025 Best of Net and the 2025 Pushcart Prize. Her poetry has been featured in several literary magazines and anthologies. Find her online @jillianstacia to read more of her work.
