While the opioid epidemic consists of accidental overdoses, what if it is also a melancholic act? Over 92,000 people died from opioid overdoses in the United States in 2020, an increase of 31 percent from the year before. What lack of mourning on a societal scale has helped create such a catastrophe? What do we need to hear in these deaths? I would add to this the bewildering 60 percent increase in suicides among teenagers, now the second-leading cause of death for that vulnerable age group. Suicide by suffocation is the method du jour for reasons unknown but can account for a large part of the increased percentage because of its lethality. Opioid death is also a stoppage of breath. 🌑🌬🌬🌬🌬🌑 Link in bio at @textezurkunst