I feel nothing. I only hear.
I hear the bored world telling me
I’m nothing special.
I hear death, charming and strong.
It tells me to come…
Beckons me with its fingers
The whisper, so close to my ear.
I shiver.
My heart beats faster as Death begs it to find peace.
“Come.”
My body longs for it,
My mind tingles.
Let me lie with you.
I come for death.
I rest at last.
I tried to kill myself. It didn’t work. I keep wondering… was I even close?
Why is it up to someone else to determine what is right for my life? Why is it up to others to tell me that it’s wrong for me to want to die? It’s a conflict of interest when family says it’s selfish for me to try to kill myself. If I’m in pain, isn’t it selfish of them to ask me to stay, to spare them from pain?
Mine is only one life. I want to go out as inconsequentially as a candle. People who don’t speak to me or spend time with me in my painful moments tell me I have to stay. It’s what they need, it’s what they want… but if they aren’t interested, they can’t be bothered to give their time to me, would they even notice if I was gone? This reminds me of my incessant need to shop and inability to throw away purchases I’ve never used.
I’ve heard it said that people who think about suicide aren’t necessarily going to kill themselves. When people decide to kill themselves they are often calm or at peace. This is what I felt. A sudden peace, knowing that this is what was right.
Afterward, I only regretted it not working. I may have been at peace or perhaps was so detached from the event that I had very little feelings toward it. Leaving this world was going to be harder than I thought.
I didn’t want to face my boyfriend. He kept asking to see me and I kept making excuses. When I tried to cancel on him for the millionth time in the course of three days, he called me out. I let him come. I left the door unlocked and lay in bed. When he entered my room I looked at him, emotionlessly.
I couldn’t bare to hold the weight of his pain. I rolled over uninterested and detached from his feelings. Why didn’t how I felt matter.
He climbed into bed and held me and cried.
It took me a few days but suddenly it hit me. If he had tried to kill himself, how would I feel?
Sometimes being self-aware is a curse. It creates an anxiety around every action and decision. Some of the first memories I have involve me restraining my excitement. I didn’t want people to notice me. I remember thinking ‘people will think you want attention.’ Now I ask myself: is that a bad thing? Isn’t that a normal thing?
I remember as a child not wanting to feel joy. I associated happiness with disappointment. I thought happiness was foolish. It meant I trusted something enough to allow it to affect me. I thought I was being smart by denying myself happiness. If I didn’t feel hope I would never have that hope dashed to pieces. I was preparing myself for the worst possible outcomes.
I didn’t tell my parents I was skipping school. Eventually, the school stopped calling when I didn’t show up. I didn’t tell my parents I was staying up all night because waking up alive devastated me. I didn’t tell them that some nights, I would drug myself with massive doses of headache pills so I could fall asleep without having to lie awake in silence for too long.
I didn’t tell them I exercised at night because I was afraid of gaining weight or that I didn’t eat for days at a time or that I loved that feeling of hunger. I didn’t tell them that sometimes I would inflict pain upon myself. It made me feel like I was receiving punishment I deserved. It made me feel a physical hurt that was preferable to the mental agony I couldn’t give up on.
I didn’t want my parents to think I just wanted attention.
I finally sought help in my second year of university. I had started sleeping with the lights on because I was imagining demons in my room when I closed my eyes.
The antidepressants made me dozy and unable to focus. I was dizzy and my mind felt cloudy all the time. It was a different kind of numbness. Vegetable-like. I couldn’t hold a conversation. I was an English and History major but I’d lost my ability to read. I slept constantly. I stopped making eye-contact.
Absently Searching 