The foreword of the poem tells you that the poem is about an Asian girl who had jumped to her death and found in the snow days later and in her suicide note an apology to her parents for not receiving less than perfect scores in school. I agree with the statement but I also find that the poem can be about a girl apologizing to her parents for not being a boy and then committing suicide because she feels that her parents would only be happy if they had a son and that nothing she did was good enough for them.

          I personally had a connection with the poem and the way I viewed it. My parents were proud of me being a boy but I felt that they were never really proud of my accomplishments because I never completed any of the supposed boy things. I did not play sports, I was not into rock music, and of course I did not date girls.  I was very artistic, I played classical music, the instrument of choice was the flute, I was shy and not outgoing. I was also secretly battling my own emotions and coming to terms with my sexuality, it would be a year after graduation when I would finally come out being gay. My parents never came out and said that they where ashamed of me but you could see it in their eyes and the way they acted when I was around. To this day I feel that my brother holds more of a special place in their hearts then I do but I don't let it bother me like I had in the past for I know what the value of my life is in this world. 

Suicide Note

by Janice Mirikitani

How many notes written . . .
ink smeared like birdprints in snow.
not good enough not pretty enough not smart enough
dear mother and father.
I apologize
for disappointing you.
I've worked very hard,
not good enough
harder, perhaps to please you.
If only I were a son, shoulders broad
as the sunset threading through pine,
I would see the light in my mother's
eyes, or the golden pride reflected
in my father's dream
of my wide, male hands worthy of work
and comfort.
I would swagger through life
muscled and bold and assured,
drawing praises to me
like currents in the bed of wind, virile
with confidence.
not good enough not strong enough not good enough

I apologize.
Tasks do not come easily.
Each failure, a glacier.
Each disapproval, a bootprint.
Each disappointment,
ice above my river.
So I have worked hard.
not good enough.
My sacrifice I will drop
bone by bone, perched
on the ledge of my womanhood,
fragile as wings.
not strong enough
It is snowing steadily
surely not good weather
for flying - this sparrow
sillied and dizzied by the wind
on the edge.
not smart enough.
I make this ledge my altar
to offer penance.
This air will not hold me,
the snow burdens my crippled wings,
my tears drop like bitter cloth
softly into the gutter below.
not good enough not strong enough not smart enough

Choices thin as shaved
ice. Notes shredded
drift like snow
on my broken body,
covers me like whispers
of sorries.
Perhaps when they find me
they will bury
my bird bones beneath
a sturdy pine

and scatter my feathers like

unspoken song

over this white and cold and silent

breast of earth.