I didn’t comprehend the images passing by. I stared out the car window without knowing anything, without seeing, without caring. I was nothing. Nothing but the pain that had settled in my mind, the weight the pulled down my eyelids.
I laid my head against the leather seat and gave in to the nightmares biding me. Vivid images flashed though my mind. A noose, hanging on a cold fall day, leaves trailing the ground; an upturned bottle of pills; a limp hand covered in blood.
I couldn’t hear the voices, but I could feel them. Knowing that they were the ones who etched these nightmares into my mind did little to scare me anymore. No. I couldn’t hear them, but I could hear them breathing, somewhere deep within my mind. All thought ceased. Only a single idea held fast to my consciousness, somewhere under the weight of life.
The car pulled into my driveway. I heard gravel rearranging it’s self under the tires. Mom pulled the keys out of the ignition, and turned to look at me. “Sweetheart, are you okay?” Mom asked.
With a puzzled face, I stared at my hand still resting on the handle of the front door. I didn’t remember getting out of the car. I shrugged. Things like this happened all the time. I remembered finding myself standing outside, staring at the starlight, thinking about what was ever on my mind: suicide.
Today was different. True, killing myself was ever on my mind. I was constantly thinking about it. But today…I was actually considering it.
Why? I had lost my mind sometime last year. I never knew when I could trust myself, always confusing the thoughts in my head.
I felt so disconnected from my body. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, couldn’t bear the thought of tomorrow any moment longer. I took a step towards my room, mind on the razor stashed between the pages of an old book. I turned instead to my top drawer, pulled out paper and pencil, and started writing.
Dear world.
I’m constantly looking forward to the end, but it never comes. I find myself looking back on looking forward, and I’m staring myself in the face. Now I’m looking forward to a time when I won’t look back. I’m leaving. I can’t stand not trusting my judgment, feeling the suffocating weight of loathing myself, hearing so many things that shouldn’t be echoing in my mind, seeing things that aren’t there.
I love you. But I have to go. Goodbye.
I blinked at the letter in disbelief. So this was it. My melodramatic ending to my life. Or was it? What came after? What would God think of me, who took my own life? Was this jumping and hoping that God will catch me, or being stupid? I had a feeling it was the latter, so I tucked the note away in my dresser.
Just the same, I opened the book and slipped out a brand new razor.
I closed the door of the bathroom behind me and sat cross legged on the cold tile floor, razor held carefully in my left hand. I stared at my blue veins underneath my sporadically scarred skin. I poised my hand over the largest of my veins, and sliced it open. Red blood seeped out. I cut deeper. Over and over, I stroked my skin, hoping somehow, that it would help.
Thirty cuts later, I panicked. Life was going to be gone, in a moment. I didn’t want that to happen. Fear gripped me, and I froze inside myself and looked away. I must be dreaming. I couldn’t stop my hand. I watched it cut deeper and deeper. Blood was everywhere now. What was I thinking? I felt the sticky blood on my fingers, dripping down my arm. But I couldn’t stop. This was anything but poetic. What about all of the poems I had read, appraising suicide? It was supposed to be this grand thing that fixed all of life’s problems.
I tried to stop, but I knew I couldn’t. It wasn’t me who was gripping the razor. The razor gripped me. I opened my mouth and uttered a scream.
Mom burst into the bathroom. She reeled backward, and gasped. Her hand flew to her mouth.
I felt nothing. Finally, hands shaking, I dropped the razor.