My Husband Tells Me About a Man Who Doesn’t Kill Himself

My Husband Tells Me About a Man Who Doesn’t Kill Himself

My Husband Tells Me About a Man Who Doesn’t Kill Himself

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

We are trapped in traffic beneath the overpass,
and the man in his story trembles on the edge

of an overpass eight hundred miles west of here. Here,
I have not tried to die for some years now.

The point of his story is the call
someone makes to nearby truck drivers. Together,

they gather beneath the man to form a net of big rigs
and wait for as long as it takes for a person to reconsider

the impossibility of tomorrow. I’ve known
the mangled shape the mouth makes begging someone

not to die. Which is different from begging her to live.
My husband’s mouth, I think, makes this shape now.

All my life I thought I was hard to love.

Disobey authoritarians, support The Nation

Over the past year you’ve read Nation writers like Elie Mystal, Kaveh Akbar, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Bryce Covert, Dave Zirin, Jeet Heer, Michael T. Klare, Katha Pollitt, Amy Littlefield, Gregg Gonsalves, and Sasha Abramsky take on the Trump family’s corruption, set the record straight about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s catastrophic Make America Healthy Again movement, survey the fallout and human cost of the DOGE wrecking ball, anticipate the Supreme Court’s dangerous antidemocratic rulings, and amplify successful tactics of resistance on the streets and in Congress.

We publish these stories because when members of our communities are being abducted, household debt is climbing, and AI data centers are causing water and electricity shortages, we have a duty as journalists to do all we can to inform the public.

In 2026, our aim is to do more than ever before—but we need your support to make that happen. 

Through December 31, a generous donor will match all donations up to $75,000. That means that your contribution will be doubled, dollar for dollar. If we hit the full match, we’ll be starting 2026 with $150,000 to invest in the stories that impact real people’s lives—the kinds of stories that billionaire-owned, corporate-backed outlets aren’t covering. 

With your support, our team will publish major stories that the president and his allies won’t want you to read. We’ll cover the emerging military-tech industrial complex and matters of war, peace, and surveillance, as well as the affordability crisis, hunger, housing, healthcare, the environment, attacks on reproductive rights, and much more. At the same time, we’ll imagine alternatives to Trumpian rule and uplift efforts to create a better world, here and now. 

While your gift has twice the impact, I’m asking you to support The Nation with a donation today. You’ll empower the journalists, editors, and fact-checkers best equipped to hold this authoritarian administration to account. 

I hope you won’t miss this moment—donate to The Nation today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel 

Editor and publisher, The Nation

x