I can't write poems
because they won't give me a pen

because they're afraid that I'll **** myself with it.

But what they don't know
is that I'm not the perfect Venn diagram
between suicidalness
and patience,

that I'm not creative enough
or desperate enough

to use a ballpoint
or a fountain
or a quill

to hang myself
or poison myself
or slit my wrists.

And because they won't give me a pen,
I can't write poems
to
    save
            my
                  own
                         life.