Since this is a hard time of year for some people, myself included, I thought I'd do a sort of public service post. Many people, including yours truly, feel incredibly lonely this time of year. It's hard to explain why some people embrace and enjoy holidays and can feel joy and gratitude. Some of us feel a void, something missing, and this holiday season seems to exacerbate that.
If you're reading this and feeling like you want to kill yourself, read my poem first just because I want people to read my shit. But, seriously, this is the information for the suicide prevention hotline:
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
I did attempt suicide at one low point in my life when I was a troubled teenager. I am not ashamed of this. I've gotten to a point now where I enjoy my life and I'm relatively content. I could not fathom ending my own life as I want to see what happens next and I know that things can and will get better and improve when facing adversity.
My point is, no matter how much you feel isolated, you're never alone on an earth with billions of people in it. Some of us care about all people just because we're kind and loving. Find someone like that to talk to. Celebrate friends and family and try to look at what you have rather than the voids, and I know the voids can sometimes feel crippling.
I wrote this poem about suicide after Robin Williams died. We all have darkness and strife in us; some of us just learn coping skills and learn how to manage it.
Thanks for reading my poem and also remember not to kill yourself. We all belong in the world, this big, beautiful, scary, crappy world we've fucked up and scrambled to make right again.
how and why
how: it ends. something brought
you to your knees. you've lived with
pain, as we all have. you can't do
this anymore - this living. you go then.
why: can't you see a beat up, old, gray
Mercedes shining in the rainy moonlight
with an enormous silver canoe roped
to the roof - and take simple
pleasure in the privilege of
a sight - let your imagination
go - and recall the mood of a
really good Stephen King book?
how: you feel no connection to the
cells in your body that toil and
exist for you to live. life has
been with you - some say since you
were birthed - others say very
shortly after your parents fucked.
you're done fucking people.
that
should never get old or unwelcomed.
why: just thinking makes me feel
better sometimes. like how my
ex-husband told me during a
semi-comfortable lunch: according to
Neil DeGrasse Tyson, humanity's
existence is a mere second before
midnight on New Year's Eve in the
year that is the universe and
all we know or can possibly
speculate about.
how: you're not too scared to cease
your breath. it seems you're
more afraid of lonely breaths to
come. think of your lungs. after you
expire, they will expel their reserves
which have been there for you
since after they emptied of your
mother's amniotic fluid. this is
your death rattle. you'll not see a
rattlesnake again.; you'll not hear it.
you won't hike around Devil's Tower
in Wyoming, longing to hear one,
but secretly, safely, relieved that you didn't.
why: it's not all about you. your life
is not all about you. just you. people
love and people care. after, you know
people will hurt. hurt so bad and
miss you. they'll feel horrible that
they couldn't help - then, after
accepting they couldn't anyway,
a new grief of how shitty you
must've felt before you decided
not to live anymore.
how/why: the Beatles. you'll never hear the
Beatles again. you won't rediscover
an old favorite from Let It Be. you won't
purchase a scarf and leather boots.
you won't feel a cold winter wind and
adjust the scarf, placing it over
your nose and mouth, the familiar
scent of your closet, of clean
storage, mixed with the blue,
blustery wind. you wont feel the
frigid ground, somehow harder
in winter - although that's not
physically possible - through boots
that feel snug and only a little
warm in the cold. you won't feel
that grateful feeling for the boots,
even if they are only semi-warm.
you left us all. we loved you.
you couldn't love yourself enough.
remember, it's you.
you couldn't love yourself enough.
this world and humans who
populate it can be horrifically
vile and cruel - heartbreak runs rampant
on our planet.
love. hope. thoughts of beauty. books.
our history. our future.
you removed yourself
from this equation
without solving
the problem.
you didn't show your work.
