starting fresh before spring comes

the doctors whisper on for hours,

then they unanimously agree:

there is something most severely

and medically wrong with me.

they don’t ask how many fingers

instead they make me count my feet,

they stop me as i keep going

when i've gotten up to three.

had the red pill / blue pill conversation

just days ago with strangers by the street,

except they didn’t ask me to choose blue

they asked me to choose green.

and i know i’m going dizzy

getting caught between my teeth

and my words don’t linger longer

they elongate, fear filled, meek.

i might not remember tuesday,

have lost feeling, time, space, me,

but i’m getting along quite easily

except with people i've known before this week.

had five hours of uninterrupted sleep,

woke up, head painfree and clear,

and of course the pain started rising right away

but i remembered how to hear.

as i opened my eyes this morning

after lying awake for a while,

right the second the bell chimed,

darkness lingered a little longer,

and then faded, barely vile.

started checking, started counting,

counted eyes by closing all

except slowly one by one,

counted the prescription pills

they always bring and

that haven’t changed for months.

again they ask on: is she mental?

she’s been going to therapy?

but the thing is, written black on white,

they know quite surely it’s not my mind,

‘cause i’ve been crazy-symptom free.

and they skip counting my fingers

and they start counting my feet

and they do it over and over and over

until they, too, forget to stop at three.

my hands have grown smaller

barely feeling in their wake,

and yet I haven't aged a year,

a single month, a week, a day.

It is less eternal youth

than that it is eternal waste.

It's failing, falling, flying free

of target thoughts.

Just this feeling, feeble, frail,

agony and yet I'm bored.

Tired, tumbling, tracing thoughts

with no beginning, less an ending,

chasing tails of circle trails,

yet stumbling tirelessly for nought.

See yet another star fleeing from heaven,

unseeing eyes tracing a path,

heading straight for a clear target,

before there then turning to dust.

And I wish for what it had

and I wish for what it has

and I wish to also turn to sand

just traces in the wind,

all else gone,

all else lost,

yet not lost,

not done,

traces.

just done

in the way

there is

step one: write your suicide note

don’t write to anyone in particular

you know there are people who’ll read it

and you know there are people who’ll care

but it isn’t that kind of message.

you’re past explaining

- everybody knows –

and you’re past apologizing

- because nobody can expect you to suffer like this any longer.

write about what it’s like to know

the dark will always find it’s way back in

and that the couple of good days you know you’ll have

are only enough to keep you going on the bearable days

and the unbearable ones when you can still grasp

that suffering ends.

they are just not good enough

for days like today.

step two: count the number of lines.

and if it’s ten or a hundred

remember that death will wait for you

until every one of these lines

have been lived through for a day.

and that death will wait longer

if you feel like adding more words.

but the words that have been written

have been written

and they must be lived for a day.

to be listened to.

you might have to stop closing the blinds in the evening

and move your bed closer to the window

because waking seems impossible

if the sun can’t find her way into day after day.

so do it.

the sun, unlike death, won’t wait for anyone.

and maybe, some clouded mornings,

you’ll open your note

and count the lines you’ve crossed

and count the lines that remain

and you’ll regret every word you’ve written

but death will have to wait.

and maybe, some clouded mornings,

you’ll open your note

and you’ll have so much to say

you don’t stop writing for half an hour.

and these days keep happening

just often enough

or constantly

but you’ll never get to step three.

step three: cross out the last line.

sign your name.

it won’t count.

live through the last line day.

you might search for something to add

and if you do, there will be something.

then go back to step two.

you might be beyond searching

and whatever happens,

it won’t count.

and morning might turn into noon

then late evening

and you’ll approach midnight

and you’ll close the blinds

because now: neither sun nor death will wait any longer

and there doesn’t seem to be anything else left.

but there is still a choice left to make.

i hope you’ve found what it takes

to make your way to the emergency room

and tell a person paid to listen

and then paid to help

that there is no reason left

to get up in the morning

or ever again

but you’ve made it through ten or a hundred days

and with a little help

quite a few more might be possible.

because death, unlike the sun, is quite good at waiting.

and you can choose what to say goodbye to.

and if that’s not the case

and the blinds are closed

and the sun has set

you might find that this note

you wrote ten or a hundred days ago

doesn’t sound so right

and you might use

a lot of similar words

but you decide to start over

and you write a new suicide note

and you count the lines