Every night

as I leave work, I consider
incorporating suicide
into my otherwise uneventful evening.

But the following morning,
I invariably return to work.
Except on Fridays.

(I mean, I still return to work on Fridays,
and I still contemplate suicide on Fridays.
I just don't return to work the following morning,
because that's Saturday.)

Then
a colleague
killed herself.

Uncanny,
as close as I had come
that particular evening.

It could have been
me. Or
it could have been
both of us.

("An odd coincidence,"
they would label it,
without realizing I almost asked her out last month.
Didn't do it, of course.
Not enough self-esteem.
But most women, I can't even talk to.
In her, I must have
detected a similar lack
of self-worth,
allowing for our strangely comfortable --
although not really sexual --
interaction.)

Perhaps,
had we dated,
it would have been different.

Perhaps
it could have been
both of us.