it is white noise in your ear drums

blood rush

bad news

too many phone calls

it is repeats

and clenched fingers

nails digging into your hips to concentrate the pain

it is unblinking

afraid to let the tears fall

it is denial

guilt

pain

it is trauma

and learning how to survive

again

and again

The details were laid out on the gurney

for his kids to sift through, like

pieces of glass

in his hair, the note

in his pocket

He took too many pills

then tried to gas himself

and our family dog

Lucky lived.

Dad dialed for help, but

died having his stomach pumped

Half-truths like this are told

to spare children the details.

The full weight was broken

into bits I could lift

once I tore grief and anger

into smaller pieces still

Your Dad

jumped out

of an ambulance

on the high way

en route to be convicted.

I have worn my heart out

wrestling with this

I drop it

Feels right to release these ashes

like all the apologies, the excuses,

the verdict that need not burden us...

Sometimes pain

weighs less than the justice

we inflict upon ourselves

Sometimes...the right choice is the heaviest

Photo by Egor Ivlev on Unsplash

#Suicide #Justice #Trauma #poetry #truth #grief

Number One-Forty-Five hurt the most.

For if I could have saved them,

Why did they die, oh why.

If they have truly demonstrated,

Their existence to me, then me

Myself is out of sorts, not them.

Every suicidal opus is contagious,

Wanderer’s to suicide’s door,

Existentialists sweep the floor.

And then there is me, lost

At Sea, drowning under you

And me, my own anatomy.

Now desperate I hate my life,

Lend me a halter or a knife,

All my griefs to this are jolly,

Naught so damn’d as melancholy.

Your eyes were the first thing I feared before I even saw your body.

The desperate hunger of a soul

that had not seen daylight in years.

I never thought that a light could go out in a person still breathing.

I would wander the night

trying to make hazy the strong bite of loss you filled in me that soulless night,

some years ago now.

You still have entrance to my mind.

I still remember your eyes.

I still remember the words

you spoke before you took.

And most of all

I remember

that woman,

who once was me,

became not me.

That is the tragedy of most takings.

It ends the very parts of you,

you didn’t know you loved.

It hardens your fingers.

They dig into ground,

lest you be lifted towards clouds full of thunder.

Where there is no right, there is no wrong.

Only the loud, painful truth,

that you were once whole

and now,

you are not.

Lightning never strikes the same place twice

but this is no guarantee in life

For the sky's thunderous roar is loud

while lightning lurks silently amongst the clouds

Life is a beast without strife

whose bark is worse than its bite

But once bitten twice shy

it leaves one breathless, gaping toward the sky

At the next hour, harm is blameless since it has done all but

destroy film ran-out pictures names built immense

warehouses for the miserly occupants outside has no fear, blessed

door smallish pretty once the malaise

leave property onsite, closing up blocks in the dark

looked for guidance

long panting thick spayed

licks soaked against a flicker, foggy,

has the ugly feeling that a witness

does not

have reservations except how nakedly

my mouth lines up put behind impressions

skies no teeth tonguemeat goes the little

crooked fence and there is a person who is

witness behind low fade

seeing inside where air is a godless

lakeshore, and blight there is increasing calm here

nightly, action is kindred nigh, formed dropping harm alarm down hard rumor: does the witness have a newfound market ploy, creates scarcity, scared?

windows.

no harm go on and ask not single reel was rightly not talk for a place another place, spines eat months

In the face of volumes not a thing was learnt— images birds, fly frosted up high where there is no place for

The outline leaving, but rightly also, it should, witless stabs rain gloss: the world never

Staying and waiting for pangs,

Enclosed birthstone palms inform nothing wrongdoing goes without future explanation;

foul dwelling without a chaos: speechless loud

Sadness not for what is lasting behind each hourly reminder

no one needs leftovers raining

indoors seditious during cold

district, no one important but looks can serve.

Distinct!

There is a witness safeguarding an observation round

a name that has no recollection, but has

permeable outlines once breaking inside

past a line where no kind minute word

escapes alive similar places, not withdrawn

a witness who degrades a stockpile

streaks of defensive lanes strike how its comes for famished feelings

do not keep place, even sorted during yearly repeating.

going forward, seeing at the next hour

is thinner in how better blindness works in

patterns enclosed, unfolds all but here

sounding awful having such an orchestra of thinner

returns.

it could be

something as small

as a scent

the smell of

bleach

as it swirls in the toilet

washing away

years of grime

but it'll never

clean you out of me.

it could be

the clinging of sheets

heavy like a body

over me.

it could be

driving through a red light

and imagining shattered glass

or seeing snow

and remembering

skid marks.

it could be

fireworks on the fourth of july

that send blood pouring through

your fingers

as you remember

a bullet wound

that no longer exists.

it could be

chemicals

sprayed on grass

that remind you of

a different chemical

in a fight long over.

it could be an emoji

sent through text

that reminds you

of an abusive ex.

what does it mean

to be traumatized?

is it a caricature of panic?

can we ward it off with

trigger warnings and psychoactive drugs?

we cannot categorize it,

as it spreads, amorphous

through our veins,

and though the circumstances

may not match

we always end up

the same way:

broken

with a system that doesn't dare

to support us.

healing is a journey

we must take

on our own

because

therapy is expensive

and justice is never served

in neat packages

with our name stamped on the front.

criminals may never be convicted,

wars may never be won,

yet still we are expected

to rise.

So what say you?

How's it feel to be bullied? Called names, then labeled?

Doesn't feel too nice, does it?

Foolish names, they compose

Silly things to devalue your worth.

Here comes the idiot!

Here comes the loser!

Here comes the fool!

They'll say it hundreds of times over to convince you it's true.

But what say you?

Can you handle a blatant lie?

Rightly, put them in their place

so that they know you're not buying?

Can you do it?

I'm sure you can, so give it a try.

Because no one deserves to be and or stay bullied,

and have others with bad intentions, mess with their minds.

was hard

to get her water too there

she we never wanted be

it was hard

to push her face

in river flow with fish to be

it was hard

but

lovely

Michael was moved by misery.

A prolific pain would gather

in his chest, a stinging crest,

and nothing else would matter.

And so he avoided television,

internet, and media sources.

Famine, war, blood and gore,

and blunt, unfettered discourses.

Michael was moved by misery.

So he tucked himself away.

The excuse to become recluse

could disrupt this hasty fray.

And so he locked himself inside

and threw away the key.

Through his grief he found relief

as a mental amputee.

Michael was moved by misery.

People perceived him as strange.

He was not fraught with what they thought.

He’d rather be estranged.

And so I found a man one morning,

who had subtly, peacefully passed.

“A nobody,” they said, when word had spread.

“We had never thought to ask.”