I wrote this piece about living with suicidal thoughts all my life. My most recent ideation involved pretending to take two weeks off and then completing my journey. I am a survivor and these are just some of the ways I have lived and continue to live with my suicidal thoughts. I once was told that completing the journey early is the ultimate act of self love. I understand intimately why someone would say that because sometimes, completing one’s journey is a final act where our powers to ourselves mattered. It is through knowing death this intimately that I am learning how to live...a life for me. 

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two weeks

 

[I’m gonna leave for two weeks]

I am standing on the bridge,

My body slamming into a passing crude oil ship,

And I force myself into the cold, steel floor

Lounging with my blood

and scattered

splatters of crude oil ready to flood the Burrard Inlet. 

 

[I’m gonna leave for two weeks]

I’m driving on Second Narrows Bridge,

I slam the brakes hard, guiding the car into the back of a container truck,

My body flattening into screenprinted abstractions,

The concrete savours the passing screams

of the ones who stopped to see the

Art Piece (it’s worth nothing other than your willingness

to taste the fruits of your sadistic exploitation.)

 

[I’m gonna leave for two weeks]

I’m sitting on the edge of the 12th floor,

The winds are hosting a party where no one has a guaranteed return,

I’m morphing into a five-second bird, perhaps a kingfisher,

Diving

into

the

depths

of

the earth, trapping gravel

In the pits of my eye sockets. 

 

[I’m gonna leave for two weeks]

Looking up at the arbutus tree and a hipster-designed

Leather belt,

A noose is better appreciated than my existence,

Time for a oxygen transplant,

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out,, breathe nothing, breathe something,

Breathe, choke,

Breath, arms flinching,

Breat, 

Brea,

Bre

[gasp], [gasp], [gas], [ga],

Br,

B…

...

...

…

…

…

…

…

…

....

thank you tree.

 

[I’m gonna leave for two weeks]

I waddle into the Pacific Ocean,

Remembering my grandmother and how she closed her eyes when it was her time,

I’m the one that pulled her eyelids down. 

“Grandma, I am coming to you and I don’t want to stay here.”

She roared at me and said her humyn silence does not mean consent.

I said, “I’m not asking, grandma.”

 

[I’m gonna leave for two weeks]

I am letting the bathtub digest the life from my neck and wrists,

The shower curtain reminded me that the veil is thin,

Like wasted beet juice, I’m drained and only

the sewers would guarantee my freedom.

 

[I’m gonna leave for two weeks...

I’ve put in my vacation forms,

I forgot to tell them my return date,

But it’s ok,

HR will take care of it in their reporting,

“we would send something but it’s been two weeks

and that is not this company’s obligation to send anyone anything. The next worker is ready.”

 

I’m finally gonna leave for two weeks

I promise to be back,

(May not be in one piece)

Give me love that’s

Two

Weeks

Worth

And it will be the best love

You wish you never had.