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Foreign Concepts

Statistics say teenage suicide 
          is the curse of American
culture.
     Society likes to smile as
it reminds us that 
          Seppukku is a
Japanese word (Un-American).

Honor (suicide): Foreign Concept

Today, I read a letter
I found in a case profile
     from a Girl long dead-
case closed:
     Like a Juliet 
with common hormones and
anxieties, but without the
     intimacy of a 
dagger.  She overdosed
and gave me a face
     carefully placed in
a drab manilla folder-
visualized
statistic.

As I close the
     case folder and seal
it for the records, I remember
what a famous Japanese author
once said in his death note:
     "No one understands why they do this-
there just seems to other options."

Honorable (options): foreign concept.

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