TRIGGER WARNING
TALK OF SUICIDE
I wrote this yesterday and I haven't shared a poem in awhile--so here goes. It's a hard read, but its the truth. xo
I swing from depression to depression
Suicidal thought to suicidal thought,
Like a trapeze artist.
Searching for one solid foundation
Like the crust of the earth.
But it all shakes out of me.
Vulnerable, convincing me I am fragile.
When perhaps in dreams I am a
Thick strong warrior.
I think small things will help me,
A slave to the shower, slathering
My face with lotion, my body with perfume,
Just to get in my long wear pajamas.
Imagining new shoes will propel me
Forward like a conveyor belt.
Instead, I have stacks and I am ready
To OD on whatever closest pill bottle
I find. So we lock up the pills,
So he cuts trips short because
I am not the strong marauder I think
I am. The tricky magic enveloping me—
Is that I am strong. I am a powerful
Leathery horse. The wrinkles on my hands,
The ink in my skin, the saucy tenacity
All keep me alive even on days I can’t breathe.
I dream of things, like little paper airplanes
Or origami swans. I dream of a good morning.
A good nights sleep. Accepting my body as is.
But its always out of reach, like a long wait
At a coffee shop where I always order decaf so
I can perhaps sleep through the night.
“I fall apart cut to my core”—the song I
Listen to on repeat as I drive home from therapy,
Crying like a storm pummeling through my old
Car. I speed and drive erratically, I drive across
The overpass I think of plunging off of.
Some days the only thing stopping me is hurting people
Below me with my body falling on their car and causing
An accident. Also the incredible trauma it would cause
Anyone on the scene. I have committed my life to
First do no harm, just like the pretend doctors who took
The minimum of care when I was getting Electric
Convulsive Therapy. Laying there, hallucinating for hours.
Destroying my memory like juicing a pink orange.
So I wear my tight suit of scarred skin. I float back and forth on
The trapeze, pushing off on each ledge, hoping I can
Propel forward, even when all I’m doing is
Moving back and forth like a lazy two-step or
The charleston. Perhaps, at some point
I will get out of the circus game and walk home
On the Iron Horse trail, strengthening my body
Until it is as strong as my soul.
