For me it was to escape my pain and emptiness. I didn't care at the time if I was being selfish, I just didn't want to feel anymore.

I was tired of being hurt, being manipulated, and treated like an outcast.

It took years of therapy for me to understand that the way I viewed my suicidal thoughts was that suicide would be an easy way out of my life instead of facing my problems and fears head on.

But even though I realize this, I still think of suicide ever so often.

Life is tough, it's a constant battle that you're always fighting. If I give into suicide, that just means I lost my will to fight for my right to live.

Left alone to

watch the purses

and phones.

Babysitting the drinks

while drowning my misery

in a strawberry daiquiri.

Everyone's at the bar

some are on the floor

I'm on the couch

watching the world burn.

I'll take another shot

A hit of rum to the heart

Something to kickstart the

lack of sobriety.

Fun is all that exists in

this midnight society.

So I'm a criminal of

the undrunk kind.

Alone and sober

I'll watch this bar unwind

Good girl.

Sit still.

Here are your pills.

Hold tight.

Sit up right.

Please don't start a fight.

Act proper.

Stay in line.

Tell yourself that this is fine.

Good girl.

Be plan.

Men only want you if you're sane.

Say yes.

Bat your eyes.

Your looks are sugar to these flies.

Red lips.

Hide your skin.

We'll make you cookie cutter thin

Good girl.

Get the gown.

You'll be the happiest bride in town.

Smile big.

Wave your hand.

You just hooked yourself a man.

Thank you agent 399,

You've married the suspect of one hundred crimes.

Hold your act and wait for the time.

Three months in the man has slipped. He spilt some tea he should have sipped.

Good girl then sent him on a one way trip.

Many say love is the greatest thrill and pain you'll ever know. I think they have never known true love then.

The elder couples who still hold hands and sing and dance say love isn't love if you don't adore.

Love, they say, is absolute adoration no matter the situation.

Love is..as they say,

Love is picking up his clothes.

Love is doing the dishes before she gets home.

Love is letting him watch his game.

Love is a poem rejoicing her name.

Love is staying with him during surgery.

Love is helping through the pregnancy.

Love is laughing at his terrible jokes.

Love is tolerating her folks.

Love is watching him on stage to accept his degree.

Love is taking her to the movies.

Love is seeing him get older and greyer.

Love is looking at her old albums layer by layer.

Love is being with him.

Love is being with her.

Love is being with the one that I adore.

Dear Death,

Thank you for not coming for me when I was thirteen and starving. I thought I would see you then as I blacked out in a room that wasn't mine.

Thank you for not coming for me when I was fifteen and tired from the sticks and stones being thrown. I thought I could meet you half way.

Thank you for not coming for me when I was eighteen and thought myself worthless and unnecessary. I was stopped before you could knock on my door.

Thank you for not coming for me when I was twenty-two. My heart had broken and I felt nothing so why live anymore. If not for friends and family I would have been in your arms.

Thank you for not coming for me when I was beaten up, bloodied, and bruised. Locked in a garage and tired from the pain, I thought about coming to see you again. I grabbed a cord and I grabbed my phone...I would have seen you that day if my cats hadn't have cried.

Thank you again for not coming for me. I've finally grown quite fond of living. I'm safer now and I'm on my own. I'm glad when I called for you, you never answered your phone.

Please keep ignoring me for now, I have a life to live and I finally know how.

"I have lived my entire life asking for death to take me, now he's knocking on my door and I do not want to answer," I cry. Tears begin to spill from my aged and nearly blind eyes. My children and their children are here, clutching onto me as if to keep my soul from floating away. Old friends and brothers and sisters weep and curse at my bedside. Neighbors and their families come and leave flowers in my room. My youngest grandbabies crawl in my bed and hold me as I once held them, singing to me the lullabies I once cooed to them. I felt loved. A warm farewell at the end of a long life. And to die being this missed already is both terrifying and yet blissful. With what little strength I have left I smile to my beloved friends and family, my final farewell as I finally open the door for death.