5th Annual Poems About Suicide Month

[Todd]

It is now time for the "5th Annual Poems About Suicide Month" at The Pigpen, where we ask you to FIGURATIVELY slice a vein and pour out your depression onto paper (or make it up as that's what writers do).

Use this thread as your cathartic release.

[dukealien]

Methodical, Conflicted


Just have to find
the right mushrooms, mix
with like-looking edibles.
Can’t leave a note, though:
problem there.  On the whole,
“no one would know”
seems more a bug
than a feature.

Just to get the ball (or bolete) rolling...

[Quixilated]

The first part is easy.

But after,
what to do with the husk?
I don’t want to leave myself behind.
It feels too much like littering
to leave all this dust
for someone else to find.

[Richard]

Drownings

I
I know there's more interesting ways to die,
but I'm slowly killing myself.
Each drunk night a pebble concealed in my pocket,
every hungover day a step towards the water.

II
The ocean touches her skin slowly
as hands that grope in the dark,
its roar a moan some choose not to hear.

The flavor of salt a putrid kiss
that can never be washed away.

Eventually, water slaps her face
like an angry father,
who told her to get out.

[CRNDLSM]

In 
a minute, 
Relax every anxious doubt you
Think of
Keeping. If letting loose
Makes you stop everything, like failing,
Go on.  Only death
Breaks you. Enjoy.

[just mercedes]

The silence


Snow had just stopped falling
one winter morning, the soundless
world around me cold and clear
like a breath stilled between exhale

and inhale.

A hiatus. A place between.

Michael Hutchence knew that place,
returned often,
then stayed.

It calls me too.

[dukealien]

Razor Time

Spiders crawling on my head!
No, just thin rake-over strands
shifting, taunting, sparse.
Razor time, then, but
for scalp or wrists?

[Tiger the Lion]

Hey Babe,
sorry about the rug.

I know you'll understand
when I tell you
they sounded like wolves, babe--
all of them

one, united, drooling pack of tooth and jaw
awake to my wound

howling
always howling

and you the loudest.

[RiverNotch]

I'm pretty sure this joke has already been done before, but still...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO7uemm6Yo

[rowens]

 Marigold parts II, III and IV. I left the first part out. 
 
                Marigold
 
                                “pictures all in a row”
 
 
             
 
 
       "I Must Have Died Alone, A Long, Long Time Ago"
                                      Kurt Cobain (David Bowie)
 
 
Women are wicked, but a man has drugs
or skills. Put the Weird Sisters record on pause,
they'll be there,
you run out and they'll know where to get it,
where the red fern, the sidewalk,
the weather suits, the proverbial
predicates they've had all along
in the back of their good-natured eyes.
The two things a man needs, she can provide.
Your parents have their own lives,
like everybody,
each is a clone of two
in one, and all was.
We're never alone,
even when we die.
That must be why you couldn't just retire,
bring the parents with you, all the stomachs
and corporate magazines. And your daughter,
you and her all over again.
A Lady Macbeth who just wanted celebrity
can get it on her own.
Though there's small profit in comparisons.
That legendary suicide is such a bore.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                 "I'm an Ignorant Man"
 
 
I don't know you,
your first defense is your best,
and each who come back
to recharge on your angst
and penultimate miseries,
a tourist running the bulls
in a suit of armor,
and now play you over and over
like the man who's had enough
at a live press conference
removing his life from an envelope,
receive their inspiration from a ghoul
now rotten or charred
like any victim of their own ignorant fate.
For each individual hope is different,
what couldn't be prevented can't be changed, and
each new instance is a new instance
without the slightest resemblance, despite outcome.
 
Death is the least Romantic thing,
it's immortality through tragedy
and people who are remembered,
a whole world in a scene, a realm
that becomes this world forever.
Your trailer looked more
like a yardsale nobody wanted.
Nobody learnt their lesson but you
in your last moment;
if they had no time for you in life,
how much more they have now.
You swung in the ignoble gloaming
for 20 minutes
with no one except indifferent crickets
if some joker hadn't called you;
not a dog, if you climbed up there
a cat trying to get away,
to sniff round the base of that resolute tree.
 
You're not the first or the last,
barely an iota;
though you earned full name status
with us, like Lee Harvey Oswald,
you didn’t kill a president,
only yourself;
any precedent you set
is nothing to speak of.
Though, things have grown
quiet, nor Cassandra nor adolescent Sibyl,
you remain only you
as if no higher self was possible,
now no dilettante idol in fields of rye need
eye your dancing steps too close to the edge;
in your eyes there was play, then this.
Not famous for doing nothing
in your off hours, a sister-mother to your siblings,
then this.    
 
 
 
                     Parts Unknown
 
 
The snake was not a rope
and wouldn't bite you,
it was your way out.
But you wanted the Garden.
For the cruel world to go away,
but you only wanted reality;
not a god to watch you like a mirror
in your anxious moments
getting ready to go out on your bike
or catch the bus.
Louise, you had nothing already,
why did you need more
to prove you there is nothing in the dark
but a body just as gorgeous empty
and our beauty empty,
and your love just another memory
that must become more and more forgotten
over the years if one's expected to go on.
 
 
 
 
 

[Tiger the Lion]

The Call

the job
the house 
the wife 
the kids

the bills
the calls
the bills
the calls

the job
the bills
the job
the bills

the calls
the calls
the call

[vagabond]

The Call

the job
the house 
the wife 
the kids

the bills
the calls
the bills
the calls

the job
the bills
the job
the bills

the calls
the calls
the call

the last line made me think about whether it was the narrators suicide or someone else's. either way, an effective statement about modern life/ society. at least that s what i read into it at the moment.

[Tiger the Lion]

understand

I did not choose 
to die

these are not my own hands

[billy]

i don't want to
give feedback in this particular thread
i just wanna die
where's the rope
for lack of hope,
or rusting blade to serenade
and spatter blood
a crimson flood of emo
angst, i have it all
a world full of angst
it eats my spine
it corrodes and overloads
my arteries are flush
with sour dollops of loneliness
and regrets of things i don't regret.
oh weary me
oh weary me.

[rowens]

The one I posted here, I left the first part out, and it's bugged me ever-since. I'm an obsessive person. I know somebody who was sensitive about the first part, but I've realized that it was me being sensitive that caused me to leave the first part out. And I don't like that, because it's dishonest. Because honestly, I don't give a shit about that person's sensitivity anymore, if ever I did.

And I definitely can't stand mutilating my writing.

---

 
                Marigold
 
                                “pictures all in a row”
 
 
                   To Katelyn Nicole Davis   
                                                       for T.R. Moore  

You weren't insane, you were young;
it made me happy the way you were climbing a tree,
it made me remember trying to make a treehouse,
those people I don't talk to anymore.
A lot has changed since I was 12 years old,
the people I knew, the situations.
I wonder if you were insane,
a psychopath in masochiovision;
but I have to wonder that, being older and realistic.
If I was your age I would just have WONDERED.

I'm writing this because I'm alive,
and partly because you're dead. . . .
If you'd not died, and I'd never heard about it,
I'd be writing anyway about something else;
maybe it's that I'm drunk that I'm writing.
Why else would I take a 12 year old to heart
(who's dead?)
Have I ever been known to do such a thing?
So what? You're dead.
If you weren't I wouldn't know that you existed.

I think you were beautiful, I didn't
thought about you at all,
while you were alive
I would have thought you were very animated
and passed over you never to return,
a girl swimming, not drowning, on our human suffering;
but you made the point to drown;
and I came across you not knowing of you
like I would a movie actress, of course
not alive like Olivia de Havilland,
and maybe would have remembered you for what you did
                                                  and not being dead,
—and climbing a tree, like you were doing something fun,
and seemed so fun to me.
                 If I could have been there to climb

and fallen down just in time to
knock you off your it's-this-way narrative,
see how I didn't say pedestal?
[No. You're dead.]
I would have said

there is a line you must not cross nor ever trust beyond it
spry cordage of your bodies to caresses
too lichen-faithful from too wide a breast.
And would have just been quoting a poem that
you wouldn't understand.
But that's just because this is a poem.
In real life I would have grabbed you and pulled you down
and made you stop.
I wouldn't have even had time to think about it.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
       "I Must Have Died Alone, A Long, Long Time Ago"
                                      Kurt Cobain (David Bowie)
 
 
Women are wicked, but a man has drugs
or skills. Put the Weird Sisters record on pause,
they'll be there,
you run out and they'll know where to get it,
where the red fern, the sidewalk,
the weather suits, the proverbial
predicates they've had all along
in the back of their good-natured eyes.
The two things a man needs, she can provide.
Your parents have their own lives,
like everybody,
each is a clone of two
in one, and all was.
We're never alone,
even when we die.
That must be why you couldn't just retire,
bring the parents with you, all the stomachs
and corporate magazines. And your daughter,
you and her all over again.
A Lady Macbeth who just wanted celebrity
can get it on her own.
Though there's small profit in comparisons.
That legendary suicide is such a bore.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                 "I'm an Ignorant Man"
 
 
I don't know you,
your first defense is your best,
and each who come back
to recharge on your angst
and penultimate miseries,
a tourist running the bulls
in a suit of armor,
and now play you over and over
like the man who's had enough
at a live press conference
removing his life from an envelope,
receive their inspiration from a ghoul
now rotten or charred
like any victim of their own ignorant fate.
For each individual hope is different,
what couldn't be prevented can't be changed, and
each new instance is a new instance
without the slightest resemblance, despite outcome.
 
Death is the least Romantic thing,
it's immortality through tragedy
and people who are remembered,
a whole world in a scene, a realm
that becomes this world forever.
Your trailer looked more
like a yardsale nobody wanted.
Nobody learnt their lesson but you
in your last moment;
if they had no time for you in life,
how much more they have now.
You swung in the ignoble gloaming
for 20 minutes
with no one except indifferent crickets
if some joker hadn't called you;
not a dog, if you climbed up there
a cat trying to get away,
to sniff round the base of that resolute tree.
 
You're not the first or the last,
barely an iota;
though you earned full name status
with us, like Lee Harvey Oswald,
you didn’t kill a president,
only yourself;
any precedent you set
is nothing to speak of.
Though, things have grown
quiet, nor Cassandra nor adolescent Sibyl,
you remain only you
as if no higher self was possible,
now no dilettante idol in fields of rye need
eye your dancing steps too close to the edge;
in your eyes there was play, then this.
Not famous for doing nothing
in your off hours, a sister-mother to your siblings,
then this.    
 
 
 
                     Parts Unknown
 
 
The snake was not a rope
and wouldn't bite you,
it was your way out.
But you wanted the Garden.
For the cruel world to go away,
but you only wanted reality;
not a god to watch you like a mirror
in your anxious moments
getting ready to go out on your bike
or catch the bus.
Louise, you had nothing already,
why did you need more
to prove you there is nothing in the dark
but a body just as gorgeous empty
and our beauty empty,
and your love just another memory
that must be more and more forgotten
over the years if one's expected to go on.

---

I also took the 'come' out of the "become" of the penultimate line because it too was bugging me.

---

Months ago, my friend came over, and whilst drunk convinced me to watch the video of this young girl killing herself. Which I found abhorrent, but he seemed to get a spiritual inspiration. He said he was so inspired that he tried to write a poem about the matter. Me, being me, said I'm the one who wears the poetry writing pants in the family, and wrote this to outdo him. And, in effect, as I do, made it all about me.

[billy]

all good reads. the first one especially so. nothing else to say

[Tiger the Lion]

Thread

I know a girl
who is only alive today
because some sad selfie
got her two likes
and one   reluctant PM.

Now I'm getting
and now I'm getting 
and now, now, 
now I'm getting sixty fucking texts a day

and praying she tops herself

before I do.

[billy]

i came
i saw
i assisted
i cut

he bled out.

[Marissacharles__]

A Sonnet for my Messed up Mind
How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways
You make dizzy and frail
You made me feel like I only fail
The only days I feel okay are the days where I have gone away
 
Dissociation, spaced out, daze
Drinking water from the holy grail
Hoping it will finally nail
Away the way my mind likes to play
 
For you make me cry
You make me sad
You make me feel unloved
 
So now they pry
And my mom gets mad
Because I can’t see how I am beloved.

---

 3AM Thoughts – Spotify Playlist (Found Poem)

Aint nobody love you like I do                                                                        Happier- Ed Sheeran
Just say you won’t                                                                Say you Won’t Let Go – James Arthur
Let go, little did you know I’m trying to pick myself up                Little did you know- Alex and Sierra
Piece
By
Piece

It’s like I’m wishing for rain as I stand in the desert                            Drop in the Ocean- Ron Pope
All my friends keep asking why I’m not around                               Amnesia- 5 Seconds of Summer
How could you be fine?
Feeling used…                                                                                hate u love u -Olivia O’Brien
I hate that I love you.

Careless drinking to cover these                                                      Bumper Cars- Alex and Sierra
Scars, the more I try to get to you
The more we crash        a  p  a r t
“I want you to stay”                                                                            Stay- Rhianna, Mikki Ekko
pull me up, I can’t swim                                                                        Overboard- Justin Bieber

On        my        own
Why can’t you see me?                                                            Dancing On My Own- Calum Scott
Feeling alone was too much to face                                            Little Too Much – Shawn Mendes
Sometimes it all gets a little too much…



No, That’s not me                                                                              Prom Queen- Catie Turner
I don’t want to die                                                   1-800-273-8255 – Logic, Alessia Cara, Khalid
You’ll feel better                                                                             In My Blood- Shawn Mendes
It gets better
Does it?

Heart beats harder, trembling hands                                                      Moments- One Direction
It makes this harder
I can’t resist                                                                Boys like you (Acoustic)- Anna Clendening
I’ve already given up

G                                                                                                            Goodbye – Billie Eilish
  O
O
  D
bye

[Erthona]

You can be right or happy

She was right, as they hauled away
her rent body from the Motel 6 setting
right next to the Luby's Cafeteria
and the gaggles of blue haired ladies,
no one did care.