The Last Line

By Rowan Eo

 

Sunday mornings are for the post-drip

and wishing I was dead.

Those forbidden words

I can never say to anyone: just

let me die–

or say to the wrong people

and wake up in the

blue room with white lights.

How much longer

before my heart gives out?

Waiting for the next bump

in the road to fall

asleep to the need

to get better.

Should I stop?

Eight ball says:

No. It’s too late.

But this is the last line.

 

I promise.

 

Rowan’s Bio: 

Rowan Eo is a Korean-Canadian writer based in New Jersey. They graduated in spring 2020 as a Paul Robeson Scholar in the Rutgers English Department, where they received high honors for their multi-genre creative thesis on rape culture, gender studies, and trauma theory. Throughout their time as a Rutgers student, Rowan twice received the Academy of American Poets Enid Dame Memorial Poetry Prize. They also won the Edna Herzberg Prizes for Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry, the Rutgers English Department Faculty Prize, the Julia Carley Prize for Poetry, the Evelyn Hamilton Prizes for Nonfiction and Poetry, and the Mitchell Adelman Memorial Scholarship for Fiction. Their poetry has been published in the Rutgers Review, and is forthcoming on the Academy of American Poets website. They are also a recipient of the Douglass Residential College Challenge Award, Marilee A. James Endowed Scholarship, Veronique Henriksen Junior Prize for Academic Achievement, and James Dickson Carr Scholarship. In the near future, they hope to pursue graduate studies in creative writing and literature.

Rowan wrote “The Last Line” as part of their creative honors thesis.