Poem, for relatives of those who died by suicide

marty1985

Edit: I am sorry for my choice of thread title, as I don't offer any comfort as such... Anyway, if anyone wants to read it and comment...




I wrote something for you today.
It was like a story. But I cannot sleep,
So I am up in the middle of the night at my desk
With an eraser, and I am making the pages blank again.
It's no use to anyone anyway, especially not you.
You are gone and I'm still here.
It's not easy though.
When I erase a line, I can still see the mark of the pencil
On the paper, so I can still read the words.
Although, I don't know them by heart.
But I know you by heart.
Some of the words don't want to disappear, but I insist.
Can you remember the night we got drunk in town,
And you caught a girl who fell down the stairs?
At the time I wished I had been the one to catch her.
The hours we spent drinking.
I wrote something about your eyes.
I wonder if you can see anything now.
And what was the last thing you saw, the last thing
You fixed your gaze upon, and thought about.
I rub harder.
I lift up my head and I notice that it is not so dark now.
It must be after 4. It is dark blue and getting slowly brighter.
I look down and see the word 'Conversation'.
We had some good ones.
You loved Leonard Cohen.
I heard your brother found God.
He can be seen going to Mass on a Sunday.
Someone said something about suicide, and how you can't go to Heaven.
Seems cruel.
I think God can save whoever he wants to save.
The rules don't apply to him.
I talk too much about religion these days. My friends don't like it.
I have stopped erasing, thinking.
I need some music. Moby. Porcelain.
Is it all part of a plan?
Were our lives planned from the beginning?
Did I travel down centuries to be alive at the same time as you?
Were you always going to die like that, or could I have helped you?
Imagine all those thoughts you had was a room.
It's hard for me to enter that room.
You spent too much time in there, but I don't have a key.
So I close my eyes, and I break the lock.
How long can I stay in this room?
Is it as bad as you thought it was?
I might criticise, I might say it's not that bad.
Maybe even a little comfortable.
But this was your room. Not mine.
I might want to make a list of all the thoughts I see.
But I am an intruder.
I don't want to get stuck here.
Did you think too much?
I don't think about you all the time.
I moved away. I don't live there anymore.
You wouldn't believe me if I told you.
If I make it sound like I think about you all the time,
That's not true.
But you do cross my mind, if I hear sad music,
Or if someone says "What would you know?"
I learned a lot from you.
So I like the sad music.
Porcelain. I play it again.
I lift the eraser.
I can hear birds singing.
Faster now, I erase whatever I wrote.
Those words go back to wherever they came from.
Back down centuries, back to the beginning.
Back to where we all came from, back to where we all will go.
And then I think maybe they are going back to you.
I stop.
I don't want you to read this.
I'm too late. What if when it leaves my page it
Is printed on yours?
I lift my pencil and write one more thing.
I erase it quickly and blow it away.
The page is blank white now.
I fold it and put it in a drawer. I get into bed and I turn out the light.

tapo

I have been in that place, and had to daydream to get through the days and nights
Lovely images there to keep with you, make sure you never erase these thoughts.
They are yours and now they are also ours

Offy

Ive been there too, I like you poem it brought back some nice memories, thank you.

marty1985

Thanks everyone.

I wanted it to be "stream of consciousness", like reading someone's thoughts. I guess that's why some parts look a bit random, and it looks very unstructured.
Another idea was that of darkness. "I wonder if you can see anything now." It was just a thought. So, as feelings were expressed, it got brighter. Also, the idea of nothingness. If the person who died still exists at all, in any form. So I ended with the line "I get into bed and I turn out the light." I wanted it to feel like a sudden ending, that leaves questions, and things unresolved. We don't know the dead persons reasons, and we don't know what the speaker wrote on the paper at the end. Just some thoughts I had. Thanks for reading.

Is_mise_mimi

There is some really lovely images there, brings all those thoughts back again. Although i don't think there hasn't been one day where i haven't thought why....

marty1985

What happened there?

pickarooney

Just some nasty spam.