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

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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.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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