Taken from 'SUICIDE Vol.2 - A collection of poetry, short prose, interviews and personal stories from around the world on the themes of suicide and self-harm.'  CLICK HERE for further details and to order a copy.

BACK TO DUST

By Mia Amore Del Bando

My family sits in the corner

Wondering why would I ever want to visit God

With a gently tied rope

Or a misfire of a gun

God’s been missing my prayers

And dodging the voicemails

Miscommunication that no church can conveniently tie

As if He was on speed dial, a starred favorite

I wanted to ask

If there was a plan

And if we were a mistake

That simply got of hand

I sit under fat clouds

Wipe the tears

Pour myself a drink

And breed a new hope for tomorrow

From to dust

Back to dust

My family sits in a corner

Wondering why I left

Devastated I can never visit again

ABOUT THE POEM: “This poem reflects on the cruel thought process of self-harm and suicide. I wrote these to resist any temptation. At times, I feel small, and writing helps me create a better relationship with myself, and a higher power in able to pull myself out of negative thinking. Negative and suicidal thoughts are addictive, and you have to develop the self-awareness to spot it early. Writing is my outlet, and my savior.”

SPRIT SON

By Steve Ferrett

Close my eyes, I feel you so close, tenderly caressing my bereaved soul

Open my all to you and you heal my pain

Pain that once cut like a dagger, eases, questions that remain unanswered, degrade,

My mortal aura entwined with your ethereal spirit

You have taught me that not all that falls is lost, but will rise again, new incarnations

Your energy by my side, we stand tall .

Born blood, lived blood and died blood, now celestial ichor flows between you and I.

Enlightenment is my journey and you are my guide - Spirit Son

NO ANSWERS

By Katherine Brownlie

A croaked voice and watery

cracked red eyes announced she

was fed up with life

through the half open door

it was five in the morning again

enough said

she was confined

for good

I have no answers for the

pertinent questions of life

although I am specialist

for I too am human

I have certified knowledge

pertaining to planning demographics

risk factors

predicting completion

of suicide

I am experienced in detecting

mental illness

can apply psychological rating scales

treat with cognitive therapy

the panacea of emotional

troubles

but I have left all this behind

those social constructs

of people management

giving structure but

coldnesses

I prefer now to peer

Into the soul

But I confess I feel helpless

In the face of desperation

with life

I am specialist

but I feel I have no answers

my father once said to me

I hope you kill yourself

when he was unhappy

with what I had done

such sinister mouthings

can push thoughts into action

often its others who cannot cope

with the us of us

non specialists offering

an end to their own suffering

I think I live to spite such a person

but could a machine

wish our self destruction

keeping us infantile and

unquestioning in the

pursuit of endless

infernal happiness

persuading us over time

of our worthlessness

dripping with misery

we suffer in ways

the machine can only mimic

it knows the solution to

every question

but cannot know the courage it takes to

change

to be

to understand ourselves

our suffering is part of

our human richness

and we must always cherish it

for it cannot be controlled

much like love

but to find

a lovers noose

is a deep sadness

the lure of a looped knot

spurned for now

how is hope indeed found

in a disappointing meaningless world

it can only be salvaged

from the smallest of things

I am specialist

but feel I have no answers

I can only be with

someone

in the quietness

to suffer out the new

perspective from the fretful

dark kiss of agony

to feel human connectivity and

compassion is

enough to go on

breathing

I am specialist

but feel I have no answers

but rational decisions

over our own

corporeality

are apparently socially

allowed

I have my own plan

should I need it

it makes me feel I have

the option to live

to be in momentary

happiness and resolve

to be human with

unreliable feelings

of sufferance and sorrows

deep

I am specialist

but feel I have no answers

ABOUT THE POEM: "My poem is written from the aspect of being in a helping or significant other situation. It expresses feelings of inner helplessness, compassion and concerns I have of the effects of the machine and the algorithm has on our lives. It acknowledges that we are all human and perhaps should cherish this very aspect of ourselves, no matter who we are. Our suffering is our wealth, but can only be felt as such in meaningful human connectivity."

THE FORBIDDEN RITUAL

By Mark Andrew Heathcote

A widowed woman is committed to death.

Ritual says she must climb her husband's funeral pyre

find her beloved in the blue smoking, burning ghee

her husband's head rests on her lap, ah this is suttee; 

this a ritual suicide by fire on a log & straw pyre

opium-induced, honouring flames lick beneath.

They're all-consuming to her life, her mixed grief. 

Is this all meant to make her otherworldly, 

in this undertowed vision of heaven, sparks fly, 

cries howl, soon to drown, they'll crackle, die.

Ah, this is suttee; and is a ritual otherworldly, 

she glows now a goddess, ah radiant in disbelief.

Her body is like clarified butter, burning ghee.

Ah, this is suttee; this is a ritual, otherworldly

her soul is like clarified butter, burning-ghee

now she too is otherworldly, ah, this is suttee; 

ah, this is suttee; a forbidden ritual, otherworldly, 

sorry, I-just-doesn't think so, at least not to me.



PRETEND

By Rebecca Topham

Pretend that you didn’t have a twin sister

Who lived in a little flat

Pretend there weren’t bright flowerpots outside

Where in summertime, she sat

Pretend that she didn’t have two tiny dogs

Who accompanied her everywhere

Pretend that she didn’t bask in the sun

Atop that beautiful field over there

Pretend that there wasn’t a little shop

Where she liked to buy sweet candles

Pretend she didn’t suffer from an illness

That -even you- could not handle

Pretend that you didn’t lose her forever

And that in the woods you walk

Pretend that you sit on your bench together

Laugh gregariously and talk

Pretend that you could have saved her

That you had visited her that day

Pretend that you had helped her

And that she would still be here today

ABOUT THE POEM: “This poem is about my identical twin sister's suicide. She was my life. I hope my poem illustrates her beautiful, quiet personality. She suffered from depression, and I have bipolar disorder too, so we were able to give strength to each other. I really want people to see the person behind suicide. The act of suicide - I have found - seems to obscure the person. And so I write often in Debs' memory.”

NOT A MOMENT BEFORE

By Linda M. Crate

sometimes anxiety whispers:

"what if they hate me?" while my 

depression laughs and says,

"no one cares enough about you

to hate you."

there are some days where i can

feel the warmth of the sun,

and other days it just feels like a lie;

there are some days i need a little help

simply to get by—

just being heard, having someone

to sit with me in the dark

makes a world of difference to me;

the days where no one has time for me and

i feel like i am drowning are the hardest—

people always say if they see the signs

of depression that they would be there for

their friends,

but people don't notice anything;

they'd only know if i were gone not a moment before.

ABOUT THE POEM: “This poem is from my own personal life with depression, and how it has impacted the lives of me, and those in my family.”

POSSIBILITY’S COINCIDENCE

By Dustin Pickering

Star —

the cylinder birth of cavernous Earth

disappointed

Fantasmal origin, god of cyclical

brooding, recompense.

I hear the music through the wall.

Judgment of the past, forms present

part of the future

Helen deep in love with the fruits of

discord.

Panthers slowly trickle from the future

to the realm of boredom, present.

Sets fire to adulterated fun, lack

of enthusiasm for.

The present is popcorn —

always lifting its boredom on high,

exalting.

The past is always popping corn.

Hearting the string.

The floods of tempestuous flame acknowledge

no saviour.

We are secretly burning the forbidden

letters of yesterday.

Tomorrow’s leeches are shallow tide prophets

whistling on the wind.

As the present sits in the middle, weighing

possibility.

MEMORIES

By Anthony Ward

All out at sea,

Away from shore,

I searched for you.

Falling overboard into the depths,

You caught me,

Saved me from drowning

As I sank deeper into myself.

Bringing me back to the surface

Where I could hear the waves swash

Back and forth in reminiscence.

MANIC WIZARD

By John F. Zurn

Today the wizard actor plays,

a role he has created.

He energizes every cell

and wanders streets elated.

Above his head he calls the clouds

with mantras filled with rain.

Thunder and his waving arms

keep time within his brain.

This wizard knows the secret signs

in every spruce and willow.

He counts the numbers 6 and 9

and dances but none follow.

Back at home the TV screen

gives messages of grace.

Music from the phonograph

affirms the wizard’s faith.

But mortals clad in black and blue

begin to close the noose.

They come and talk of things to do

beyond the wizard’s room.

Finally, the wizard rides

into an institution.

Believing wizards ought to hide

they make his reservation.

HOW WE GET THROUGH IT

(After a Son’s Suicide)

by Laurinda Lind

The vast body is grounded at its pulse

and in the sap of its words.

A memory threads the blood.

Out in the world, its masks and bowls,

filters and pumps, wheels and wells

everywhere turn around the silence at its hub:

whether in fields, in yards, in abbeys, in minds.

This electricity below bedrock is a river

whose news washes all.

A body thrives on plants made of soil

and stone and stars and death, and where

we are the most ruined, there

we may make ourselves right.

ABOUT THE POEM: "'How We Get Through It' is an attempt to find a way to stay grounded despite the suicide death of my 17 year-old son."

AT 7.37

By Ian Douglas Robertson

At 7.37 on a February morn

a shot rings out,

Splitting the breaking dawn.

No one hears, no one cares.

A shotgun taken to a rabbit or a rat.

To scare the pigeons off the cabbage patch.

The day halts its relentless march

For a second, a resounding split second,

To register the blast

but nothing more.

The birds fall silent for a second longer,

Suspend their rustle in the trees

but that is all.

The world keeps turning on its axis,

Indifferent to the cannon roar that

Seems to soar above the misty valley

at 7.37.

No one knows the exact hour.

They are not there.

Nor do they care

to record the time and moment.

The moment when time stops,

When a dream comes to a close.

The moment that is never shared,

That cannot be shared.

The moment when a man puts an end to his life.

ABOUT THE POEM:  "My father shot himself in the early hours of the 15th February 1992 with a shotgun to his head. He had just spent three weeks with us in Greece after my mother’s death. He was clearly not himself but showed no signs of deep depression. He had expressed a wish to go back and dig his vegetable garden in time for spring. On the 14th he returned to Moorfields, where he had lived with my mother. It seems clear now that he had made up his mind even before he flew back to Ireland that he would put an end to his life. It took me twenty-five years to write this poem. This distance enabled me to see his death in general terms, as representing so many other sad and tragic deaths. In fact, possibly all deaths are sad and tragic, the only difference being that his was premature. I never blamed him for what he did. In fact, I admired him for his courage. I have always believed that we should have the right to end our life when we choose. The circumstances of his suicide, however, brought home to me how alone we are in life and particularly in death. Death is not a moment that can be shared, especially when it is self-inflicted. This poem has echoes of Garcia Lorca, a poet who, after so many years, still echoes in my head."

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