You have mixed feelings about suicide prevention.

If a person wants to go, why not let her go? Then again

there might be another way to live she hasn’t considered

yet and a stranger to impart these choices in a voice

paved with old potted coffee. It’s like that wedding

in Stony Point you wanted to leave before they served the cake.

Your ride was ready to split, but the fat girl in your party

had never tried canoli cake. Well damn her for wanting

and damn you for saying: the fat girl. She wasn’t fat

on the ride up when you discussed Hart Crane and Kurt Cobain

and which one was sexier: drowning or shooting? Hanging

is best if you can swing it, she said. You liked her then.

But an agreement had been made, 10 pm, cake or no cake.

You knew nothing of the catering boy with a steel stud

through his tongue, fingering a packet of pills. He watched you scowl

at the garter toss: mouth wet with little lemon sorbets

and broiled fish. When a person wants to go, why not

let her go? Then again, if you stayed for the cake you’d get kissed.

From reading the chapter, what I understood was that in order to pursue something, in order to decide on a choice, one must be willing to accept and face the shadows. I picked this poem because it's kind of cynical narrator. You expect their choice to be honorable or somewhat understandable, but they seem more indifferent to the shadows.