i first considered suicide when i was 12
life didn't really get better afterwards
i fell asleep crying years before as a young child
because i couldn't be convinced
that my parents loved me.
literally, i said to their faces, sobbing,
that they didn't love me.
and their response was not sugar for an ant
i didn't believe their words
i spoke with certainty
i cried with surety.
so that emotion is ****** from the beginning.

for a few years, the idea of death didn't exist.
life was too terrible,
confusing,
abusive.
verbally, physically, sexually,
i couldn't entertain the thought.
my life got worse
until it felt better
a mask had formed.
some kind of shell.
hollow, but still of some substance.

before turning twenty, death returned.
i didn't want to **** myself
i just wish i had never existed.
i found that distinction intriguing
although impossible, it relaxed my nervous mind.
then it happened,
i thought i found love.
i felt welcomed.
i felt accepted.
i felt appreciated.
but i never knew love
so what i thought i found
was actually just a person being a person
to another person.

my mind twisted into improbable knots
my heart was attempting to untie them.

life went on.
up and down.
lows got lower, until the valley raised
sunshine glowed brighter, until the clouds came.
i drank, alone.
even at parties
i drank alone.
somehow, loosing control felt right
it felt like chaos
if felt like the theme of my life
it felt like natural order
and i loved it.

i traveled
i drank
i worked
i drank
i studied
i drank.

at some point,
death became appealing again
i was on the other side of the world
riding a motorcycle through a distant countryside
one morning in December i said to myself
"i could die today, and that would be ok"
wouldn't you know it, just a few hours later
two bloodied gashes needing a number of stitches
fractured face in multiple places, a broken wrist.
i didn't die.
i just ended my expanding experience.
i don't remember what happened.
truly
the last thing i remember was seeing a tree
lost in the middle of a lake, a reservoir.
theres some significant symbolism, i think.
the doctors said there weren't signs trauma
no serious or minor concussion
my friends told me it looked like i was seizing
or that i had fainted
i just find it really odd that those would all come together
so conveniently.

time continued, life did too, even though i was uninvolved.
a conscientious objector.
life got better, or at least felt better
then it got worse
and the cycle continued.
i tried to love, i really tried,
my past was shared with a loving woman
and she held it against me
as if it was my fault.
so i drank,
i drank, found pills,
saw the morning rise covered in hot ash.
and knew i should be dead.

it got better for a while after,
until once again

death and i were talking.
he told me he's set a place for me at his table
the food is warm and
his door is always open.
i just have to take off my shoes at the welcome mat.
i made sure to tell him how kind his offer was
but my soles aren't run down just yet
i still have a few more miles left
somehow, i don't think it matters
we're all killing ourselves by living
so why not die trying.