i am dazzled by the idea of my suicide
and what it will do to you

the mother of my best friend,
who only ever saw me smile around her son
and filled her house with infectious laughter.
what would she say to my mother at my funeral?
would she even come? would she let him go?
how do you reconcile
the sweetness of a young girl
with the slashes on her wrists?

what about him?
i love you,
but sometimes i wonder if you realize
i am walking a razor thin line
between going through the motions of alive,
and death;
i wonder if the horror would settle slowly,
surreal in its weight,
or if you would be filled with panic and fear
at the realization that
you should’ve seen this coming.

the space of time between my panic attacks,
and telling you i am okay,
is too short for me to possibly be okay.
the tightness of my arms around your waist,
the fear of letting you go,
is all too telling of my loneliness.

i love you, and i don’t want you to hurt,
but what would my suicide do to you?

you, the boy i loved,
who let me bleed like it was beautiful,
like it was entertaining.
what will it be like
to finally see the life drain from my eyes?
i always thought
you ought to understand the consequences of your reckless love,
and this is not a punishment,
but what if you finally realized?

your fingers are soaked in pain,
your lips a knife’s edge dissecting me,
and i fell in love with it for so long,
but your love made me fantasize about the blood in my body
in ways i shouldn’t

perhaps you would cry,
and there would be an ache
where i used sit next to you and play with your hair,
but how soon would you forget me?

it is a dark thought,
but, mother,
what would my suicide do to you?
would it throw you off-guard?
would you pretend
i didn’t present you with all the telltale signs?
i don’t even know if you’ve stopped looking at my arms,
or if you’ve chosen to ignore the skin suffocating with scars.
how do you not anticipate your own child’s death, mother?
i am waiting for you to look at me
and see that there is so much more hidden underneath my eyes
than flowery, teenage angst;
often i am unhappy, mother,
to the point where i forget there is a tomorrow,
and i know you understand
because you only talk about your anxiety.
i love you, but this is not what family is supposed to be like, is it?
i am alone in this empty house.

perhaps my death would make me mean
that much more to you,
because all that’s left is love lost;
all there is is a vague memory of the girl you let die,
all that is gone because she is dead.
perhaps a pretty laugh,
her bouncy movements,
her sing-song speech.

but perhaps my death would be inconsequential;
how long would it circulate
before it became a whisper of a rumor?
how many would blame me for my own sadness?
acquaintances who would feel bitterness towards the fact
that they ever associated with someone so sick,
mothers and daughters who’ve placed me in a box:
this is why we don’t like depressed people.

and i’m not even dead,
but i’ve fallen in love
with the pain my suicide would bring upon you,
like it is something pretty,
like it is something to be desired.