i wrote an anonymous letter

to the girl who was suffering,

telling her to stay strong

because she's worth it.

i watched her smile,

tuck the letter in her purse,

and stand a bit taller.

i wrote an anonymous letter

to the boy who had trouble believing in himself,

telling him he was doing a great job

and that he is really talented.

i watched him take out his notebook and start drawing.

i have made two persons feel a little better.

what more could i ask for?

(First, thank you for the wording of this challenge. I have always thought of suicide as the ultimate act of selfishness. I wouldn’t have written about it, except you challenged me. <3)

There’s no poetry in suicide, just the empty holes it leaves behind. I know, because I’ve thought about it myself, taking my own life, but I’ve also survived the suicide of family and friends. It’s in my history, it’s all around me, and I’m left doing a lot of feeling and deep thinking. I’m a survivor; of rape, emotional abuse, and psychological torture. I know what it’s like to be done, to feel like you can’t take ”life″ anymore.

 It’s a surprisingly heavy feeling, and the alluring thing about suicide, is how physically uplifting it seems to consider. To be gone. Nothing. Nothing is a very light feeling, if you’re not already too numb to feel anything at all.

But I also know about science, the body’s chemistry, and the real and very physical things happening inside me when I feel that way.  My brain is literally flooding my system with specific little peptides (emotion-chemicals) that the rest of my body is parking into receptors I can feel. Every time those cells regenerate, they regenerate with the most-used receptors. The more I allow myself to sink into despair, the more I’m flooding my system with sad-chemicals, the more by body produces cells to receive them, and soon, I bodily crave the feeling without realizing it because the majority of my receptors are for receiving those chemicals. 

I feel like I found a home in that sadness. I forget what it’s like to live without it. 

That’s not imaginary, it’s a real, physical reaction to having more sad-chemical receptors.

I know that is why the anti-depressant pharmaceutical companies are making so much money. Why I wont go through a laundry list of side-effects to feel better. It’s why those dorky phrases about ”change your mind, change your body″ or ”mind over matter,” ”where there’s a will there’s a way,” ”if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter“, or ”whether you believe you can do a thing, or believe you can’t, you’re right″ etc.,  are actually true. 

So, in those moments when I’m so low I’ve forgotten how to feel anything but despair and wanting to end it, how can I justify taking my life? End of cycle.

 I literally have two options in that moment:

1) change my mind to find a way to better my “life” so I enjoy it rather than want to escape it, or 

2) I take my life and stop my mind all together. 

Option 1 will ultimately involve finding what I love, because that’s the only way to be happy. My only chance to repair my body to have more happy-chemical receptors, and have less chance of feeling despair in the first place. I may not succeed, but I will be alive to see the lives I impact with the effort, and buy myself more time to learn my own potential. Life goes on with or without us, but if I choose option 1, I’m apart of it, and it could be good...

Option 2 will ultimately involve losing everything I love, have loved, or would love, and depending on my religious/after-death beliefs, either return to repeat the cycle, exist oblivious to the world I left behind, cease to exist,  or be left to watch helplessly, the very same world  I couldn’t take to live in anymore. All of which amounts to... me deciding to take that option over seeing what I could do here, on Earth, with the folk who are sharing this life with me. 

Selfish, both of them, but in Option 1 I have the potential to help others, inspire others, and really make a difference in my little string of existence within this huge web of a seriously messed-up society. In Option 2, I leave everyone behind. I don’t consult them, the ones that matter, they don’t matter to me, because not being matter anymore is the only thing that matters. It’s the kind of selfishness that surmounts any other selfishness because it’s finite, definite, ultimate, complete, the end... for me. The dead.

In option 2, I’m not around to help with the physical clean-up of my remains, nor the condition I’ve left them in; and let me tell you, you’re never as neat as you think you are- death is messy. Period. I’m not around to sort out my affairs, and if I was thoughtful enough to leave them in order, I’m not around to see it done right. I’m not around to share the good memories, or help those left behind in the sad ones. Even if I left a note to explain any of my parting thoughts, no one really knows what I felt, or why I would decide death over possibilities. I wont be around when they wonder what I could have been, or when there is no one to comfort the one I never knew I impacted- who now feels like their spark is gone and there is nothing left to live for.

That thing I could have discovered I loved, I could have been happy in perusing with a passion, it goes undone and those I could I have inspired must find other inspirations. 

It’s like hacking the limb off the tree of life:

Nope. Sorry. You cannot travel this limb anymore, and it will grow no more branches, the leaves will never turn again, nor fall, nor grow that vibrant green you only get in spring- it’ll never bloom again, nor share it’s pollen and beauty with the world, nor offer any more seeds of anything.

Selfish. 

What sense does it make for any of us to deny the rest of the world, or ourselves, those positive possibilities because we fear or dread, or can’t take the bad ones anymore? 

Do branches get broken? 

Yes. But when the tree lives, the branch grows again in a new way.

Do branches have to fight to survive?

Hell yes, every branch must navigate the others to find it’s own ray of light!

Is it difficult?

You bet, every branch is living in the same sea of life that helps it survive, threatens it’s well-being or life, or is indifferent all together but using the same resources. 

Is the branch a victim of circumstance?

No branch decides where it grows from the tree, or how high it gets to the sky; but a victim waits for rescue and circumstance happens without them, while a survivor finds a way through circumstance because the other option takes them out of the equation.

My point is, when we live, possibilities are endless and we have a chance to guide them. When we commit suicide, we end that, and those left behind have to keep going in our wake, without our positive touch, or the growth of their own from helping us through our negative. Ultimately, those who commit suicide feel alone, like there is no other option, and the reality always is that there are, they just might not have realized or found them yet. The information is out there, the people are out there, the only thing needed to put them together is us. Suicide isn’t just selfish, it’s a literal no-option for everyone.

-M.E.

201601160039

(o.o sorry for over 1200 words, been building up I guess.)

I am an Introvert;

recharging best in solitude,

exhausting most when socializing,

yet I still prefer we over just me.

We can discuss things I didn't know.

We can carry two different ends of a long table.

We can feel-think-and-move independently of each other.

We is better than just me.

With just me and no you to make we,

I am a tree in the forest falling unheard,

nothing more than a proverbial sight unseen,

the very definition of a nobody.

With we there's us and infinite possibilities.

| another_proser |

To understand Déjà π,

you must first know Déjà vu:

Imagine, 

you’re walking across a room

two doors, up ahead, flank you

and you must choose-

and in the moment of realizing this,

you also remember already doing it,

this-

the walking across the room

seeing the two doors

realizing you must choose,

AS it’s happening to you.

It’s different than your memory

when you did this same thing yesterday,

it’s the here and now in echo

the false memory of Déjà vu.

Now imagine, 

same walk, same room,

but this time 

you remember remembering Déjà vu;

it’s the feeling of remembering what you’re doing

as your doing it,

but also remembering you already remembered it

in a kind of double Déjà vu.

This sensation can get exponential,

so, where is the divide between multi- Déjà vu

and the infinitely more complex Déjà π?

The individual’s mind.

What if, when experiencing Déjà vu,

in any form between singular and multitude,

you could focus your thoughts through,

to see with the eyes of the other you?

This is the divide between Déjà π and Déjà vu…

A moment of consciousness split in between

the you that you are, and the you’s you could be

in infinitely expanded realities,

in a moment synchronized in the doing of a deed,

you have a chance to see as yourself, but also as they see…

Nine out of Ten choose the door on the right,

and still you see a hundred minds take the left,

and suddenly the sameness is like noise that’s white,

and the stains that show through are the difference-

a push door instead of a handle,

the right turn instead of a left turn of the knob,

the light that comes from a candle,

the silence instead of a soft distant sob-

follow it long enough,

and be conscious,

you can have a legitimate conversation

with any version of yourself like this,

see any reality you are a part of

all because

this flicker

of Déjà vu

opening a door

in the mind of the observer

who takes it to infinity

with experience

of multiple possibilities

simultaneously-

I don’t ask why,

I just called it Déjà π.

-M.E.

201601081042

The pile of leaves sat there for so long, unmoved by the winds.

Then, one day, a breeze came in from a new direction.

The leaves rustled about before becoming swept up in the air and scattered about.

Many cold, mighty winds had tried to separate the pile time and again, but it wasn't forcefulness that was needed.

It was simply a change of direction.

What follows is my thoughts/rumination about why I get suicidal urges and depression that won't go away for the last 8 years. 

What was it all for? Why did my generation give up 15 years of our lives in wars that accomplished nothing? I live in constant pain and I can’t remember the last time I slept well without medication. I walk around permanently angry at the world. I missed so many holidays and birthdays with my family, that I am surprised I still have a family. 

 I am a generation X kid. We were raised in the 80s and 90s. We knew who the bad guys were when we were growing up. Democracy was good and Communism was bad. After 15 years of war and more deployments than I want to remember, the only thing that I am sure of is that the problem with Iraq and Afghanistan is that we were there. You can’t convert people to democracy if you give it to them with the heel of your boot. 

Our generals FAILED us, our senior leaders had no idea how to fight this war, and the casualties just continued to climb. We soldiers were stuck with the garbage leadership that didn’t leave the Army under Bill Clinton. The Army offered big money for people to get out early in the early 90’s. The smart ones took it and ran. The crap that was left over stayed on active duty and became our senior leadership that thought the best way to pacify a nation was to kick in their doors and search their houses. How’d that work out dickhead? 

We lost more people in Iraq than on 9/11 and no one has ever been able to show me why we were there in the first place. We demolished Afghanistan looking for bin Laden and then found him in another country that was supposed to be our ally. 

What did my brothers die for? What are they still dying for? We have 22 suicides a day and climbing, because no one cares. America doesn’t care about us and most veterans know it. The Republican party has fought time and again to get rid of Obamacare, but they have no problem with the VA allowing vets to die from neglect. The Democrats want us to go to war with no money for training or equipment and just figure it out once we are there. There is no political party that is good for the soldier. 

As I approach the twilight of my career, I look around at all that I have done for my entire adult life and realize that I wasted my life for a cause that I can’t even define. You want to know how veterans get to suicide? We can’t fit into this society because of the war, and we don’t know why we went to war in the first place.   

an alarm clock

that could never be stopped

it goes off every few minutes

so loud

so disturbing

creating a cacophony

of ugly sounds

get a hammer

use it to smash the clock

but nothing can break it

it's too strong

too powerful

try to carry it

and throw it out the window

but it's too heavy

remove the batteries?

it has no batteries

it doesn't need batteries

leave the house?

it will follow you wherever you go

The setting sun sent rays of fire

like honed spokes into the guts

of her belly

reminding her by its stinging aura

where she had been and

where she was going.

The unblunted pain reminded her

of the rash decisions she had made

of her blowout punches and the mortals

whose lives she had destroyed.

The torrents of agony would dissipate

for the evening like the lamp of sol

plunging below the horizon

but the pangs of misery

would resurface once again in the morning

as she began spewing her inferno

in jagged spikes taking aim

at the blazing sunrises she had been dealt

forever kindling

the searing flames which continued

to flicker and arouse the animosity

buried within her ashes.

He watched her in her deepest sleep, wondering if her breath will come back from the white blood cell's suffocating death grip.

Death is now suffixing her life. She only has a few moments to spare so she musters up strength to guide her feeble fingers holding death's black pen inking down the last sundowns.

She gave an inkling of what was going through her mind no matter how mundane the details were. She made sure to remind everyone who read her diary that she was strong in her faith as she wrote "By His stripes I am healed".

He was just a little boy when she fell in her deep slumber awaiting awakening in the near wakening.

Not fully understanding the depths of death's grave encompassing all of life's ending.

He carried the burden of being the only one in the family not having enough memories to remember her by. Only having experiences and memories from others to reminisce past times.

However, the moment he picked up her diary expedited the healing grace of understanding and hearing her voice one last time.

Eradicating the painful silence of never hearing the embracing laughter enwrapping all of us to her presence.

Thus bringing forth closure provided by the words left behind by the dear sleeping sister.

No longer resentful by death's sting of resting her forevermore, finding peace amidst the painful reminder of her never waking up from the nightmare of white blood cells multiplying overtaking her body.

No longer angry at God's omission transmitting remission to come back sevenfold.

No longer in sorrow for her not seeing him grow up to be a man with dreams and visions of greatness and excellence.

Only yearning for death to visit him one day soon so he too can be watched in his deepest sleep.

Dark music rises in the weeping willow trees. Barren branches whip into sync with the breath of the wind. Dead souls are called by the howl of the moon. They dance in ritual with a cracking tone. 

Snapping to the rhythm, they begin their hunt. They sniff for the innocent, nauseating scents reflecting life. They listen for a pulse, piercing drainage from the wrist. Hysterical uproars echo,  a maddening hunger strikes the crowd. 

Salivating with sewage, they tear at rational flesh. Their bellies are full, regurgitating sick laughter and hate. The feast continues, as they devour the weak. Witnessing the perverted harvest, a solemn owl falls dead. 

They light their cigarettes with flammable blood and taste lost hope, it's sweet in their throats. They chant repetitively in underground voices, "Ashes to ashes." And all of the children fall down.

They pick their teeth with the bones of their slaughter, and excrete tarry waste on the remains. A weathered crow lands watching insanity's secret. He claps his tattered wings at the sight of love's burial ground. 

The moon begins to set, and a broken window  seeps repulsion at the sight of the sunrise. The smell of burnt fur begins to rise, and their coffins are dropped like an ax.