Another kid died by suicide today.
Depression wrapt round their ankle
thorny briars and suckers
pulling them ‘neath the fog
when the glittering dew
and sunlit morn
lay tantalizing
a hand’s breath above.
Shuddering breaths
cold, sweat-soaked skin,
knife in hand, pills scattered on the floor.
I was that youngling once
bright, successful,
masking the numbness—the weight inside.
I never sought help;
lucky to be alive.
Depression is insidious;
it strikes from nowhere,
cannot always be stymied.
We try to blame ourselves
for neurochemical imbalance
a genetic certainty
encoded in helices
that we cannot alter or destroy.
The inevitability only describes the condition,
not the way it may end.
Luck is involved in this endeavor
as surely as any other.
Survival or destruction
may balance on knife’s edge,
in spite of medicine or effort.
Take solace in knowing—
if sickness strangles into silence—
that burden is no longer carried.
That lonely, foggy place is uninhabited.
The pain we all carry in our hearts
is not reflected in theirs
for their spirit is unburdened;
mask shattered on the floor.
Light breaks through
what was clouded before.