On Past Suicidal Ideations

At the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland,
there’s a model of a Carcharocles megalodon skeleton.
It’s thirty-seven feet long, suspended from the ceiling

by strong, thin wires, the wall behind it imitating
the blue gradience of the sea. The model is made
of foam; megalodon fossils have largely failed

to withstand the raze and ravage of 3.6 million years.
Its mouth is wide and ready, like a werewolf’s,
and its eye sockets bulge from its skull, the size of two

ominous cups emptied of their intentions.
As I stand before it, just us alone,
nothing forbids me from reaching out

and grazing its false bone with my fingertips.
Nothing forbids me from breaking off a spike
of its being, so big and dead, and plunging it into

my pocket. I wish someone was in the exhibit with me,
someone whose arm I could grasp in entreaty,
beg them to let me tell them about a certain longing

I had 3.6 million years ago.

Annie Przypyszny is a Creative Writing major at American University. Her poetry has recently appeared in 30 North, and will appear in the upcoming issues of The Northern Virginia Review and ANGLES.