(TW: Suicide, self-harm)
So what if I do die?
What if I finally blot myself out of existence –
cut the albatross from around the necks of those who love me?
I’ll watch the funeral procession and it won’t be a relief.
They’ll pick that albatross right back up
and they’ll carry it with them for the rest of their lives.
Death is not an easy wound to heal from –
it’s a cut that will not close, one that needs grafting,
stitching and surgery and months in wrapping.
It will never just be my wrists I’m slitting,
never just my body I’m scarring.
It would hurt them,
hurt them perhaps more than my heavy existence does every day.
All that misplaced guilt, all that misplaced blame.
I won’t pretend it will be me they’d be lost without;
it would be the life before the wounding that haunts them.
So what if I do die?
Who would clean out the guinea pigs or do the laundry?
Who would do the washing up and dust on Saturdays?
Who would turn the oven on or try to keep the peace?
Someone. Someone would.
It would be inconvenient for a while but I’m not irreplaceable.
Still, what if I do die
and never get to watch series four of BBC Ghosts
or season seven of Grantchester?
What if I never get to read all the books on my list
and what if I never get to cuddle the guinea pigs or go to the island
or chat over coffee with my ma again?
Such small things, but in the end, the small things will save you.
So what if I don’t die and go on wanting to die forever?
What if I don’t die and crawl through the years
with nothing to show for it besides cut up knees?
It’s all just so what in the end, I suppose,
because smaller wounds on my arms will always be better
than inflicting one large one on the others that will never close.