Tag: suicide

#PoeticAnswers 89 – What Were You Wearing?

I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
Were you expecting me to say
Something more fitting,
More form fitting,
Something more pretty?
Or would you rather I said
I was wearing a shirt and tie so
You can fetishize my school uniform
To try and justify his actions
And make the victim him and not me?

Were you hoping I would say
I was wearing nothing but
My sexuality on my sleeve
And leggings so you could say
“They were practically begging”
And then pin the blame on me?
Then go on to say that I was
“Preying on his fragile masculinity”
Twisting the situation and implying
That the problem was me?

Because the truth is
I wasn’t wearing anything that would
Let you dress consent as a foregone privilege
Instead of a basic right.
And the only reason his
Arms and ego are bruised is because
I tried to fight back and tried not to
Not let it happen but I was
Too frightened and pinned down
With brute force and fear.

I still feel his hand
Over my mouth,
Forcing my screams
To back down my throat.
I am forced to wear scars
Carved by his nails and I’m
Stained with bruises that
No shower can wash away and
No knife or razor can cut out.
And I’ve tried.

No noose or antidepressant
Can change the way that
I have been changed.
And if you think,
If you believe,
That I would ask for this,
For my life to be hollowed out,
For my body to be mutilated to the point
I don’t recognise my reflection,
Then you are just as much to blame as him.

I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt,
Now they’re stained, tattered and torn
And strewn amongst the shreds of
My dignity and innocence and
Shards of shattered dreams that
Have given way to nightmares that
Don’t let me sleep
And broken-record memories
That play over and over and over,
That remind me the victim was me.

#PoeticAnswers 76 – Can You Describe The Most Peaceful Moment You Ever Experienced?

It was the calm after a
Torrential downpour of depression
Which washed away my sensibilities.

It was after the storm in my head
Subsided into the choked whispers
Of voices who would leave me high and dry.

Nothing leading up to the moment was peaceful,
My body and brain fighting tooth and nail,
Fighting my will to not fight anymore,
My breath becoming a shallow imitation and
Turning into a desperate rasp,
My pulse frenetic and thrashing like a shark in a cage
Filled with a rage that fills it with a desire to survive.

Until the noose buckled.
And I crashed down with the weight
Of myself and the world
In slow motion.
A dark euphoria of
Pins and needles crawling like
Electric insects through my veins,
Tingling and tearing through my body.
My ears ringing like
The the sound of a thousand flatlines,
Loud enough to drown out the world.

In this moment,
There was no guiding light,
There was no distraction.
Just calm,
Just darkness,
Just perfect quiet.
Just reminders that
I am alive.

Question from Delaney A. from Facebook

#PoeticAnswers 13: What’s Wrong?

Nothing.
Nothing really.
It’s just this tiny,
It’s just,
It’s nothing.

I promise,
It’s nothing.
You don’t need to worry,
Don’t look at me like that,
It’s nothing.

Something?
Maybe something.
It’s stupid really.
You can put your eyebrow down.
It’s nothing.

Have you ever
Felt like less than nothing?
Like your funeral’s being held early,
Like the weight of the earth is coming down on you and,
You’re dying?

Crushing,
Crushing in my head,
Crushing in my lungs and chest,
I’ve stopped gasping for air because nothing is there,
I’m choking.

Choking like
A candle in a glass cage,
It can’t shine or fight anymore,
It sputters and withers, turning to darkness and smoke
And nothing.

Nothing,
I wish I could be nothing,
Because nothing is worse that these feelings of nothingness,
Nothing comsumes, nothing excites, nothing is the only thing that is there,
I’m nothing.

It’s nothing,
Like I told you, it’s nothing,
And I wish there was something I could do,
But I’ve been drowning and sinking into this dark ocean, and, like its waves,
I’m breaking.

Nothing,
Nothing more, nothing less,
There’s a hole like a cavern carved in my chest,
That I’ve dug myself so I can find my heart and make it
Stop beating.

Talking,
I hate talking,
I don’t want to talk about what’s wrong because
It’s not your problem and I won’t be a burden so believe me when I say,
It’s nothing.

#PoeticAnswers 3: Why Don’t I Want To Live?

Why Don’t I Want To Live?

I have spent too long awake
And my thoughts are travelling
At a million miles an hour
As I try to find an explanation
To justify the non-extinction
Of myself.

Please forgive the 1am ramblings
of this shell before you
But I feel a need for an
Inevitable confrontation
And elaborate invocation
Of my feelings

Dear myself,
Why don’t I want to live?
Seriously, please tell me
Because I’ve got enough going on
And I was going so strong so
Why here and Why now?

I have more than I
Feel and deserve
And life lately has been
As easy as soft-serve
Ice-cream because I’ve been
Pretty smooth and chill

I’ve got a job and an income
Friends I can rely on
So why is my mind
Greyer than the
Aberdeen skyline
In September?

There’s a roof over my head
And pillows and a bed
Yet a lead-lined shadow of doubt
Has cut its claws into my shoulders
And I adorn it and crumble
Under the weight of this dark cape.

Why don’t I want to live?
When my mood started cycling,
I started using training wheels
To keep balanced
But there is still a white light
At the end of this track that I’m riding

I have tried to hop, skip and jump
From pity, misery and responsibility
But my physicality and mentality
Are in a separation battle
And the judge said
They can have me on alternate days.

I have syringed the serotonin
From my brain and painted it on my door
And immersed myself in the real world,
And attended firework displays of
Fluoxetine, clozapine and amphetamine
But dark smoke has choked the chemical light.

Why don’t I want to live?
Am I averse to positivity
Or have light-headed thoughts
Been pit against a heavy heart
In a rigged boxing match
In my skull?

Are my thoughts made of
Shadow puppets
Which can only be cast
With the setting sun?
Even though a shadow of a shadow
Creeps in with the dawn through my curtain.

Or is it more likely
That a material life
Is unfulfilling
And the things that I want
Are not what I need
And depression is more than a metaphor?

Why don’t I want to live?
Why don’t things work
the way that they should
And why do I feel that
I should feel better
Because I have it better than others?

Why are questions easier than answers,
Why is sobriety so hard and
Why won’t this negativity shut up?
Why am I writing a letter to the
Voices in my head asking them to explain
Why we want me to die?

Because I don’t think you understand the
Gravity of the situation,
We live in this same body so
I feel that’s a cause for consternation
For you right now because
I don’t see a reason why I shouldn’t.

What is wrong with me
What is the reason
What is the point
What is the answer
Why don’t I want to live

I don’t know.