cw: death, mentions of suicide
you once asked me, did you know that the highest rates
of suicide happen around Christmas time? 

you asked (I assume) because you wanted me to be just as sad
that I was spending Christmas with mom that year, instead of you.
 
I don’t remember what I said, but I remember I was confused.
“The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” played on the car radio. 


​
but I get it now — as I sit in your old rocking chair by the fireplace
and cradle this memory in my lap, feel my fingers grow cold 

as I watch my stepsisters stand next to the Christmas tree and laugh
with their father who is not my father and is also not dead. 



my mother asks me about my good memories. 
I say, a lot of people helped me with my homework. 

that doesn’t make them all my fathers. but I still look for a
father in every graying mentor. on any stage or screen. 

in every hazel-green eye at the grocery store. 
my surgeon’s kind smile and polka-dot bow tie. 



today, I googled that statistic — 
the one about Christmas. 

it’s a common myth from 
who-knows-where. a lie. 

suicides actually peak 
at springtime
​​Kaleigh O’Keefe is a gender outlaw and proud union member living in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Their poetry has appeared in Breaking the Chains: a Socialist Perspective on Women’s Liberation, Slamfind, won the PRIDE Poetry Prize in Passengers Journal, and is featured on indie music legend Ceschi’s album Sans Soleil. Kaleigh is a contributor and editor for Liberation News, a co-founder of Game Over Books, and hosts the First Fridays Youth Open Mic in Jamaica Plain. You can find them at www.kaleighokeefe.com.
header image: Jeswin Thomas via Pexels