I want people to know I'm suicidal.
I don't want to talk about it. I don't want people to tell me it gets better or to get over it.
I just want people to know because maybe taking that weight off my chest will finally allow me to breathe a little. Maybe people will be kinder.
I want people to know I'm suicidal because I want to be honest.
I want people to know that when I wake up tomorrow, I barely survived yesterday.
I want everyone to know that I want to **** myself because when I finally do, I don't want people to think that I was happy, that I had a good life.
I want people to see the deep ugly **** I push down each day, the thoughts that literally eat me alive and push me to the edge.
I want people to know that when I'm in the bathtub I hold myself under until  all my air runs out.
I want people to know when I'm opening cardboard boxes at work with the box cutter I think about sliding it down my wrists.
I want people to know when I get in my car and the road goes two ways or into the lake I want to choose the lake.
I want people to know when I go to sleep at night I resist the urge to down all the pills in my house.
I want people to know that I want to break my mirrors and slit my throat with the shards.
I want people to know I'm suicidal.
And it's ******* killing me.

You found me
    the way fire finds the parched
    forests of California.
You caressed me
    the way waves caress the crumbling
    coast of every once-great
    Mediterranean city.
You whispered
    like the wind whispers sandstorms
    across the Sahara Desert.
You wept
    water-like into the fissures of my
    foundation

and froze

until I crumbled;
until I became a memory of myself;
a phantom limb;
a shadow in the dark.

"It was just a joke, stop being so serious."

I haven't been to church since I was 14.

At age 7,
I was introduced to my new baptist church.
I recited scriptures and played game and was always excited to go.

At age 12,
I was heading into middle school and won the church's bible challenge.
I was queer, I was Christian, I was unexcited to go to church.
It felt like everyone was staring.

When I was 13,
I had my first kiss with a girl,
my first major girl crush,
my first run in with homophobia.
My classmate said **** off with someone else,
my church said mothers should protect their children from homosexuality.
I wondered what was wrong with that.
When I was 13,
I watched my mother clap to the pastor not knowing she had one.
I watched the youth church pastor make fun of queer kids, not knowing he had some in the room.
I watched a girl I knew was gay clap along like she wasn't one of them
-one of us.
When I was 13,
I watched my first crush date my best friend,
she didn't want anyone to know she was gay.
When I was 13,
I came out to my family.

When I was 14,
I went to church for one last time,
A woman prayed the devil take this phase out of me, and put the holy spirit in.
I broke down in Walmart afterwards.

My mother said I never had to go back to that church again.
I still have some dreams about it.

When I was 15,
I declared no religion, I declared no ties to anyone.
I was just black & queer.

I lie on my back at midnight
hearing the marvelous strange chime
of the clocks, and know it's mid-
night and in that instant the whole
world swims into sight for me
in the form of beautiful swarm-
ing m u t t a worlds-
everything is happening, shining
Buhudda-lands,
bhuti

blazing in faith, I know I'm
forever right & all's I got to
do (as I hear the ordinary
extant voices of ladies talking
in some kitchen at midnight
oilcloth cups of cocoa
cardore to mump the
rinnegain in his
darlin drain-) i will write
it, all the talk of the world
everywhere in this morning, leav-
ing open parentheses sections
for my own accompanying inner
thoughts-with roars of me
all brain-all world
roaring-vibrating-I put
it down, swiftly, 1,000 words
(of pages) compressed into one second
of time-I'll be long
robed & long gold haired in
the famous Greek afternoon
of some Greek City
Fame Immortal & they'll
have to find me where they find
the t h n u p f t of my
shroud bags flying
flag yagging Lucien
Midnight back in their
mouths-Gore Vidal'll
be amazed, annoyed-
my words'll be writ in gold
& preserved in libraries like
Finnegans Wake & Visions of Neal