tw suicidal thoughts



As a child
I used to fear
Falling asleep
And never waking up

But now
I think about it
And it seems
An exquisite mercy

First Minutes
The discovery sinks in as we spring into action
Adrenaline kicks in, heart pounding, blood rushing.
My mind confusedly putting pieces together.
First Few Hours
Calls are made to paramedics and cops and investigators swarm our house.
Our car goes faster than what is safe as we follow the ambulance as it carried what we would later learn was only her body and a few dedicated paramedics.
A time of death is announced and more tearful calls are made, this time to family and later to friends.
We leave hours later surrounded by a mournful silence.
First Day
We sat on the on the couch in a shocked silence, which was only broken by my calls to her friends, the ringing of the house phone and doorbell.
First Week
The silence was deafening and I had to escape.
So I returned to school after making arrangements with my family for the cremation and shedding my own tears for the first time. I caught the last two classes of the day and began burying myself in my classwork after telling those who needed to know.
First Month
Our own questions were behind every turn as we handled finances, possessions, settling things and celebrating her short life.  
I began to tell more and more of my friends.
Second Month
The pain was still fresh and stinging,
My mother returned to work for the first time.
Third Month
I held back my tears in English.
The play we read reminding me of her and running lines with her the previous year.
Fourth Month
I let it get to me while locked in my room, wishing it was my boyfriend's arms around me instead of my paint-stained jacket as I painted the canvas as black as I was feeling.
Recording my tears for him and watching how he hid his own watery eyes the next day in class as I honored our promise.
Her birthday passed and my mother planted flowers.
Fifth Month
After an uneventful spring break, my dad began staying home from work, unable to handle the weight of his thoughts.
Sixth Month
School ended and summer began and for the first time in what was now fourteen years, I didn't have a sister. I was alone.
Seventh Month
Slowly but surely the pain faded, with the help of scattered therapists, counselors, and mountains of support from family and friends. Summer traditions continued but were never the same.
Eighth Month
The weight of her absence doesn’t rest on my shoulders as heavy anymore.
Ink stains me with her memory. The pain I felt, saw and personified over many pages as we still face it.
My father has returned to work as we each learn to deal with the missing piece of our family in our own ways.
Ninth Month
School begins.
It's my junior year and school is starting for the first time since 3rd grade without my sister. My mother would always take a "first-day" picture, the tradition faded when we attended different schools. Maybe it wasn't so annoying after all.
Tenth Month
It's October, my, our, favorite month. Lost memories run through my head along with missed opportunities. Did we even carve pumpkins last year? Last year we argued about passing out candy but both ended up falling asleep. When was the last time we went to the County Fair? The Mullet Festival? Missed opportunities for silly reasons.
Eleventh Month
The Holiday season is kicking off. Soon it will be Thanksgiving. Her absence is noticeable as I stand amongst my family and celebrate. The only ones who don't ignore it are the little ones, repeatedly asking where she is as the grownups look uncomfortable. I don't know what to tell them.
Twelveth Month
The Holidays are in full swing and I can't help but think of the last one we all spent together. She passed before Christmas. They aren't the same anymore.

One Year
Its hard to believe that a year has passed without her. Her room is the same as if shes just at school. We spent the anniversary doing things she enjoyed, like taking the family dog to the beach and sharing cotton candy.
We haven't moved on, not in the slightest. My mother still cries, I don't think she'll ever stop. But as the days pass I can see how it gets easier and easier for my family to be happy again.

From her bedroom window
Lydia could see
the grass and pigeons

and some boy
with a bow and arrow
she could hear

her mother shouting
at her father
her sister

still asleep
in the big bed behind
the tattooed arm

hanging from the bed
her mouth open
Lydia saw the boy turn

it was Benedict
his quiff of hair
an arrow in his bow

pointing downwards
he was mouthing words
and making gestures

with his free hand
she opened the window
letting in

the morning air
are you coming out?
Benedict asked

Lydia's sister
stirred in the bed
where are you going?

Lydia asked
thought I’d go
to one of the big

train stations
see the steam engines
he said

she looked back
at her sister
the blonde hair

over her face
a breast hanging
out of her nightie

which one?
she asked
he fired an arrow

at a pigeon
but it flew away
Victoria?

he said
I’ve no money
she said

he went
to pick up the arrow
stuck in the grass

he wiped mud
off the end
when are you going?

she asked
after lunch
he said

walking up
to her ground floor
window and peering in

at Lydia's sister
can you call for me?
she asked

sure
he said
will your mother

be ok about it?
last time
she almost

bit my head off
Lydia looked out
at the grass

and dandelions
growing
she'll be all right

she said
uncertain but trying
to convince him

ok
he said
I’ll call for you

he walked off
across the grass
holding his bow

and arrow
shut the blooming window
her sister said

turning over in bed
Lydia pulled down
the window

and watched
as Benedict
climbed the green

metal fence
and disappeared
from view

Lydia picked up
her sister's
***** washing

for something
(in the meantime)
to do.

You and your sister
found a pigeon
on the grass
outside Banks House

which couldn’t fly
and so you took it up
the concrete stairs
to your mother

and your sister said
it can’t fly
what shall we do?
it can stay the night

your mother said
but in the morning
you must take it
to the police station

and leave it with them
and so you found
a cardboard box
and placed the bird in

with a small bowl of water
and some broken up bread
and left it
in the lounge

over night
and you could hear its sound
and movement
as it walked around

the box
and in the morning
it was still alive
and looked at you both dully

and so after breakfast
you took the bird
to the police station
and the police officer said

what have we here then?
a pigeon
your sister said
it can’t fly

oh I see
the police officer said
in mock surprise
can’t fly ok

leave it with me
and we will contact
the appropriate people
to deal with the issue

and so you did
and on the way home
your sister said
I hope it will be all right

and have a new home
and you said
yes I’m sure it will
but with a mischievous look

in your eye
thinking
but not saying
in somebody’s pie.

carnations drip from between her teeth.
black velvet adorns her rose petal skin,
gazing at her tortoiseshell dreams.
stars bloom from the dip of her collarbone
as silk knots wedge themselves between the holes in her earlobes.
she's got a mind of marble and a spirit of stone.
flowers and haikus echo throughout her soul.
her hair is filled with lavender dust,
her fingertips covered in charcoal.
when you hold your breath and dim your fairy lights,
she dances in the dark after 11 pm
in the cosmic alleyways of a saturated twilight.

my sister fixes me when i shatter,
and i hear angels seep
from the gleam of her laughter.
a contagious joy overflows
from her sock monkey mug
as her citrus bubbles pop
and the scent of mandarins fill my lungs.
when my mind is lost in space, she shakes me and calls my name
but through the hardships i've given her, she still loves me the same.
my sister takes my hand as we jump off swings
into pools of elysian dimensions
and streams of dopamine rush through my veins as she sings.
screams of our relief lay halfway through the woods
as i told her all the things i couldn't do,
and though she understood,
killed my poisonous doubts and showed me i could.
my sister lifts me and carries me through my tragedies,
putting me at ease as she jokes in dreams and rhapsodies.
i know that if my world were to fall,
my sister would come running to my little haven in the bathroom stall
and bring me to the comfort of the rainbows on her wall.
calm the midnight ivy pandemonium
and listen to the silence that follows
her melodies behind the cherrywood podium.
should i ever feel useless, or hopeless, or little,
leave me in the middle
of her cherry blossom giggles.
my sister shields me, and when i break, loves me in restitution;
should anyone mess with her
would be the start of a revolution.

we twirl batons beneath a patchwork canopy,
whisper goat noises into the depths of the sea,
ceasing our ocean tears with tea and poetry.
two hawaiian sisters living in a playful paradise,
reciting shakespeare and telling stories of kubla khan,
singing in the rain and drawing anime eyes.
we hide under window trees with branches like limbs,
cut our luminescent hair with blades of grass
only to fall in love with a horse prince.
we admire axolotls and jump with jellyfish,
our constellations colliding with a cappella chimes
as we laugh in harmony at makeshift mops and pretzel sticks.
we sleep in a bed of letters and fake lovers
under blankets of satisfaction, opera masks covering our faces
as we share warm embraces like that of a daughter and her mother.
we seek light in the darkness of japanese lamentations
while neptune's recovery leaves us knee-deep in great sensations.

we were young lights in the universe when we first collided,
but now we are celestial atoms that can't be divided.

The first time I walked into my home was when I was five,
My mom and her best friend Louise signed me out of school,
we ate McDonalds on the hardwood floors and looked at the bare walls,
they were actually blank canvas's, waiting for life's pictures to be painted upon them.

When I was eight, my sister and I got into a fistfight,
in our shared room, a mere five feet away from my parents.
They knew it was time for us to have separate rooms,
and they turned an old den into a makeshift room that night,
where my sister would sleep until her teens.

I remember Sunday mornings,
stumbling down the stairs with sleep in my eyes,
and hearing oldies playing on our stereo,
smelling a big breakfast cooking.

I remember Monday mornings,
procrastinating to come downstairs and face the Canadian winter weather,
my mother getting ready for work,
but not before making us toast even though we never had an appetite in the morning.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

I spent countless days and nights in my first room,
always an introvert, always alone with my imagination.
It went from playing with Star Wars action figures,
to playing guitar, to writing poetry,
and eventually when computers were the big thing,
I spent my teen years playing xbox and downloading music.

Some nights I drank in that room.
Most nights I smoked countless joints and cigarettes.
A few times I even did mushrooms,
paranoid the entire time my mother would open the door and question me,
but usually she was more concerned about the candles I lit to cover the smoke,
100% certain I would light the house aflame.

My sister eventually moved into the basement,
the same one where we would sit on the rough carpets,
far too close to the TV,
playing Legend of Zelda, and Greenday's "******" blaring in my ears.
I'm still half deaf till this day.

I remember falling asleep outside,
rocking back and forth on our cushioned swing,
surrounded by greenery and sun,
bird chirps intermixing with my mp3 player.

I remember my modest above ground pool,
and my sister teaching me how to swim at six,
only taking breaks when she would attempt to drown me.

My sister moved on and I moved into the basement,
and spent an entire weekend painting and making it my home.
Bright green paint with lilac purple,
and posters of Sid Vicious, illuminated by lightsabers.

My mom got sick with Cancer,
and I remember sitting in the living room while she cried,
telling myself she would be ok,
that she would live even against impossible odds.

I remember coming home from overnight shifts at the women's shelter,
lying on the shaggy carpet and watching her with half lidded eyes.
"I'll go to bed soon."

A week before Christmas my mother moved into the old den,
the one my sister moved into when we were so young,
so she'd no longer need to go up the stairs.
The same stairs we used to slide down on with pillows.

I would lay awake in my basement, listening to her footsteps,
the same footsteps that used to wake me up far too early.
Now keeping me awake and on edge,
ready to run up to her in case she needed help.

I remember Christmas morning,
how the walls echoed "she's gone" and "call the doctor."
How my father sat at the living room table, pouring himself drink after drink,
how my sister lay on the couch crying,
and I, trying to make my mother proud, cleaned the house.

I was alone for years,
in a house that wasn't a home,
my mother dead, my sister moved out,
my father taking anything of value to his new home, with his new girlfriend,
a woman who shares the same name with my mother.
But not the same heart.

I stayed in my basement,
getting high and writing poetry,
listening to music so there would be another voice but mine.

The first time my wife walked into my home,
she surveyed the damage done to the house and made it a home again.
A nice mixture of our belongings now mix with my mothers,
keeping her memory alive in every room.

We spent many nights in candlelight, inlove, laughing,
and again the house had life and love in it.

This summer my home will be sold,
and in a matter of months this little 50's house will be destroyed.
Our medium sized lot will make room for two modern buildings,
and the twenty-three years spent here will be demolished.

There is mold in the basement,
the electrical is gone to ****.
The drywall is crumbling, the paint is scratched,
and the plumbing is sketchy at best,
but this home will always stand strong in my heart.