“did you wish you
would have successfully
committed suicide?”

you can’t ask me that
because it is one
hell of a loaded question
and i’ll spend all this time
agonizing over what answer
will make you worry the least
because and ****** anyhow
i just don’t know

it’s just one thing in
a long laundry list of
maybe’s that i took
from therapist to therapist
and psych ward to psych ward
trying to find a definitive answer
on why i was depressed
why i was afraid to sleep at night
why i couldn’t just be happy
why i wanted to die
just why why why

and i don’t know
because my whole life
felt like preparations in order
to die younger than i should have
but that stubborn cursor just
kept on blinking away
saying that my story wasn’t over

but the thing is
that depression has no face
because there were good days
where i wasn’t miserable
but then the nights were hell
and i could never cut deep enough
to find the infection
that made me this way

because even now
almost 20 and terrified
over a life that still
sometimes feels like it should
have ended four years ago
i am still depressed

under the genuine smiling
and laughing where i don’t care
if my crooked teeth show
my mental illness is still there

and i am riddled
with anxiety
and guilt
and regret
though i still cannot
say for certain if that guilt
extends to the fact that i
failed to take my own life
because i just do not know

it’s a long list of maybes
more than the scars littering
my left arm
or the days that i spent
bruising my wrist on
any sharp corner i could
because i can’t say “yes”
and i can’t say “no”
without it feeling like a lie

“did you wish you
would have successfully
committed suicide?”
i don’t know
yes
no
maybe
maybe
maybe