it was real enough, as a memory

It was a calm affair, save for my hands shaking and my heart beating really fast—mostly as a result of the medications. 30 minutes after I overdosed, I noticed that my thumb was raw and bleeding from cracking open so many blisters of pills. The day I overdosed, a friend of mine tried kicking the door down and called the police. The day I overdosed, I was in the back of an ambulance with a paramedic strapping me down and he said “That must have been around 200 pills”. It had been 100. He says, that’s not good. The day after I overdosed, I lay in bed in the observation unit and could barely move. Even shifting hurt. The day after I overdosed, my friend’s mother awoke me from my nothing-slumber to tell me she’d bought slippers and a toothbrush for me. One day after I overdosed, three of my friends drove over an hour to see me and brought me just the food they knew I liked. One day after I overdosed, I overheard a nurse warmly, unthinkingly saying she had filled in “baby’s” record to another coworker, like she was sorry for me. One day after I overdosed, a friend brought me four yellowish-red apples and said, I bought a bag of apples and picked the nicest ones out for you. One day after I overdosed, I thought, it would’ve been so nice to actually die.

I’d planned to go to the movies with a friend that day. I remember floating in and out of consciousness after they’d pumped my stomach, and I would open my eyes, look at the dark of night through the single narrow window high up on the wall, and think: Ah, I won’t make it to the movie in time.

I love you. I’m probably gonna go lie down. I love you. My heart is beating very fast but I’m very calm. I love you. I send this to my friend after I swallow the last of my pills. They don’t understand. They don’t understand at all. I love you.

A friend of mine was holding me in my hospital bed, and tears kept running down my cheeks, and I kept repeating, very earnestly: “I really did want to die. I really did want to die.”

Lying in the observation room. They wheel in a drunk guy who keeps yelling he doesn’t want to be there. He says, “I’m not dying yet, get me out of here”. For the first time, I think to myself, huh. I guess I am dying.

People feel uncomfortable when I talk about it. I don’t regret it. I wish I had died. I still think I might do it again after I leave the hospital. I love you. I love you. But I need to do it. I was so very very calm. I guess it’s a confusing feeling. I can love you and still be able to leave you. I love you I love you I love you. I do.

There was a woman with a clipboard who came to my hospital bed later, she came and she stood above me, looking at me like she would at a sick puppy, and asked me two questions. She said, how are you feeling? I said, I don’t know. She asked, do you want to get better? I said, no. My psychiatrist asks me: what are your thoughts on what you did now? I say, I don’t regret it. My only regret is that it didn’t work out.