Feeling so **** low
Sometimes I just want to go
Grab the wine and drink
Quit taking time to think
For just this day
I want to say
"I'm not okay."

Call me a sinner
I'll go out for dinner
Cry silent tears
Admit a few fears
Whilst so close
Yet so far away

Yearning for things I cannot have
Spirit in a halve
Things'll get better
Thinking about writing another letter
Then putting it in my drawer
Making me yearn things more.

- Jay M
March 7th, 2020

There are so many kids dying of cancer,
And I'm here dragging a blade through my skin.
Life is so unfair,
Why can't I just die instead of them?

I take a pill each morning--
"to keep the madness away,"
declared the doctor,
her tone clinically nonchalant
as she handed to me
a prescription for
small, white tablets
that leave a bitter chalkiness
in your mouth
when you've left them
on your tongue
for too long
before swallowing.

But
there is only so much
modern-day pharmaceuticals
can remedy.

Sometimes,
I can still hear her,
you know--
sweet.
lost.
mad
Alice
scratching at the
tessellated patch-work
of my psyche.

I can still feel her
as my fingertips flit
across the liquor bottle--
"Drink Me,"
it murmurs.

Curiouser
&
curiouser
I become with
every shot.

When the room
starts lurching,
when I am too
dizzy to stand,
I close my eyes only
to find that the world
is still spinning.

Or perhaps
I am just falling.

Yes,

D
   O
       W
            N

the rabbit hole I go.

And, as I plummet,
the phosphenes of colour
behind my eyes
transmute into the most
peculiar images:
a mercury-tainted top hat
encompassing the harlequin
countenance of a man
as crazed as I;
the trundling wings
of a Jabberwock
and the heaving snout
of a Bandersnatch;
a pocket watch,
its face lustrous and
encrusted with Jadestone--
"Time. It's time!"
it chimes.

"Time for what?"
exclaims the girl
in the periwinkle petticoat
(she appears simultaneously
excited and terrified
by the impending chaos).

"Bloodshed,"
reckons the squire
of the pocket watch--
the March Hare,
a grisly little thing
in a tattered waist jacket.

"Bloodshed, bloodshed,
off with her head!"

And that girl in periwinkle?

Why that girl is me,
and the Queen of Wonderland
has dealt her cards--
she'd like my head
(and my heart).

But
sweet.
lost.
mad
Alice
has a trick of  
her own to deal--
a Wild Card
tucked beneath her sleeve.

She is capable of imagining
at least six impossible things
before the high is over,
you know.
All it takes is a
simple flutter
of an eyelash
and then,
gripped between
her fingers,
appears a substance
foreign to Wonderland--
***.

"Bottoms up--
for with this,
I shan't feel a thing,"
she surrenders.

"What?"
roars the queen
upon her arrival.
"You will not fight?
Why, you must be mad!"

"Haven't you heard?"
replied Alice.
"All the best people are--
Cheers."

⚠Trigger Warning; the following poem contains subject matter pertaining to self-harm ⚠

~

One afternoon
in the tenth grade,
I am sent home from school for
cutting myself.

When I walk through the front door,
I crouch down to pet my dog.
She burrows her nose
against my thighs,
sniffs at them
in gentle bursts of air.

I know she can smell the blood
that has so
stubbornly
fused my nylons
to the lacerations on my flesh.

She stares up at me
with her spacious brown eyes.

In this moment,
she is the only one
who comprehends my sadness
without judgment--

there is only
love.

My heart is shattered.
Everything inside of me is violently churning and I, I am not ok.
I want to die, but I've had to many bouts of suicide that I'm afraid of the fear and how cold and lonely it is when you try.
I wish I succeeded, but it didn't.
And now I wish someone would just shoot me or wreck me in my car, but it's hard to ask someone to **** you.
Funny when you don't want to die, the worst happens.
But when you do, no one will put you out of your misery.
I start college again in 2 weeks, I dropped out last fall.
Now I have a packed suitcase and I plan to get a visa and leave the country,
I don't want to come back.
This life here is too painful,
And every sense is magnified. Sound, smell, touch, sight.
The smell of whiskey when I bite an apple.
The sound of highway sirens like when they came for me.
The sting of blood when I prepare dinner with a knife.
The sight of tall buildings where I once sat but couldn’t find the courage to jump down.
Maybe I should leave everything behind and get out of here.
If I want to die so badly, maybe I should live a little first.
Though I don't think someone will **** me no matter where I go.
Because they know life is too precious,
I just wish I felt the same.

Poems aren't written,
they're found,
Somewhere in your head the words are waiting,
They're sprawled across the floor,
You just need to pick them up,
Make a path with them,
Let your path guide observers,
And if you can't write,
Walk down somebody's else's path first,