https://youtu.be/q067Au9GA-g?si=VZC-v8SnXGx5xP-X

I'm lucky enough to live in a city with a great poetry scene (and more specifically the Dayton Poetry Slam open mics) which ive recently started attending... last time i went one of the people who runs it asked if he could play the recording of this poem on the radio (which I'm beyond excited about) sometime in September (date still TBD)... bear in mind this was 2 weeks before my first visit to the psych ward and about a month and a half before my first attempt (since I was a kid), although im doing a bit better now. This is what I'd originally written to say beforehand (but got too nervous 😆):

This one isn't really my best or favorite but its definitely my most personal... I've struggled with suicidal thoughts and feelings for almost as long as I can remember, tried to **** myself when I was 9 but wouldn't acknowledge it to myself as a serious attempt til I was in my early to mid 20s cuz I didn't get hurt... then it wasn't until I looked back on it and realized that no, I definitely was trying to (which is part of how I came to realize I have bpd since I shouldn't have reasonably wanted to or tried to at that age like I did)... unfortunately the feelings have never gone away, and although I haven't tried again since then I have gotten pretty **** close. It seemed like things had gotten better for a while, then worse, then better, then worse again... but I've been holding out for things to get better again and I guess what I'm really trying to say is just that so long as you're still holding on, things can get better again. It may not feel like it for a long time and the whole time you might be asking yourself if it ever can but so long as you're still holding on things can get better eventually (in ways we may never expect), but if you give up too soon you'll never see it happen. So just hold on.

Because of you my life is tainted,
By the hellish landscape that you painted,
Sometimes I wonder how different my life would've been,
If what I encountered had been seen,
But it was behind closed doors,
Leaving me lonely in the moors,
My innocent heart,
It was torn apart,
All the fragments spread,
And I'm at the mercy of the voices in my head,
They so to move on you need to forgive,
But you've left me with trauma I always relive,
Sometimes I wanna **** you and scream "F#ck you!"
And I know my parents do too,
But you're not worth the time I'd have to serve,
So I just hope one day you'll get what you deserve,
Maybe one day I can tear apart the hell you painted,
And leave my life a little less tainted

I refuse, my breath goes on and on,
My trauma's vanity lives on and on,
Self loathing poet, poor instant coffee,
Where is the hand that held the dagger?

Serrated stabs, fueled searing, a silent darkness,
A child taught to shut up never gets a voice,
As she threatened suicide, my voice vanquished,
You got away, I have your stabs on me still;

Nothing made sense after, once I wanted to fight fire,
Because my favorite color was red, still is;
I wanted to be a pilot then I wanted to be dead,
No wonder I loved the supposed color of oblivion;

An arrow that still flies towards a nothing,
Without a voice, the mold solidifies,
After all of it, I did try, never knew for what,
For a peace I can keep, a stillness that isn't deafening.

I lay on the warm bed,
Heated by an unforgiving sun,
Indifferent to how I felt or wanted,
Misery is my birthright;

I looked at my wrist, my slightly sunken veins,
Maybe light's wavelength is a facade,
More green than blue, more death than life,
Tainted blood, still blessed with beauty and grace;

My skin burned, was something trying to escape?
Did the wraiths of my past terrify the demons?
Have I gone insane trying to make sense of it all?
Our dying sun does not care, capitalism has won;

The tired lights of the stars and the ever-growing dark,
My arms are weary from the weight of my choices,
Losing a war does not make you a victim always,
The land is unwelcoming, evolution's mutant regret;