{"id":152,"date":"2025-04-16T23:14:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T23:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/?page_id=152"},"modified":"2025-04-24T00:08:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T00:08:23","slug":"unfinished-exit","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/poetry\/unfinished-exit\/","title":{"rendered":"Unfinished Exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Claudia Wysocky<\/span><\/p>\n

I keep thinking\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

about the time in high school\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

when you drew\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

me\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

a map of the city,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I still have it somewhere.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was so easy\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to get lost\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

in a place where all the trees\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

look the same.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And now\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

every time I see\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

a missing person’s poster\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

stapled to a pole,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

all I can think is\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

that could have been me<\/i>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Missing,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

disappeared.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But there are no\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

posters for people\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

who just never came back\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

from vacation, from college,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

from life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You haven’t killed yourself\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

because you’d have to commit to a\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

single exit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What you wouldn’t give to be your cousin Catherine,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

who you watched\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

twice in one weekend get strangled nude\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

in a bathtub onstage\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

by the actor who once\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

filled your mouth with quarters at\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

your mother’s funeral.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The curtains closed and opened again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We applauded until\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

our hands were sore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But you couldn’t shake the image of\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

her lifeless body,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

the way she hung there like a\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

marionette with cut strings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And now every time you try to write a poem,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

it feels like a\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

eulogy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A desperate attempt to\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

capture something that’s already\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

gone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But maybe that’s why we keep writing,\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

keep searching for\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

the right words,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

because in this world where everything is\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

temporary,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

poetry is our only chance at\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

immortality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So even though you haven’t\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

found the perfect ending yet,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

you keep writing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For Catherine, for yourself, for all the lost\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

souls\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

who never got their own\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

missing person’s poster.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because as long as there are words on a page,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

there is still hope for an unfinished exit\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

to find its proper\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

ending.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Claudia Wysocky I keep thinking\u00a0\u00a0 about the time in high school\u00a0\u00a0 when you drew\u00a0\u00a0 me\u00a0\u00a0 a map of the city,\u00a0\u00a0 I still have it somewhere.\u00a0\u00a0 It was so easy\u00a0\u00a0 to get lost\u00a0\u00a0 in a place where all the trees\u00a0\u00a0 look the same.\u00a0\u00a0 And now\u00a0\u00a0 every time I see\u00a0\u00a0 a missing person’s poster\u00a0\u00a0 stapled to… Continue Reading Unfinished Exit<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"parent":21,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_theme","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-152","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/152\/revisions\/247"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/20-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}