AN ODE TO SUICIDE: DRIFTING ON THE TEMPORAL LINE

written by BURNTANGEL
an ode

I’ve contemplated suicide most of my life.
Suicide has been the angel sitting in the corner of my mind, ‘open arms’ to my form.
I feel I could write love letters to Suicide, page upon page drenched in passionate soliloquy, if he had a postal address.
I’d send it with flowers and chocolate, the note sealed with a kiss.
Suicide has been the philosophical debate of my life. The constant switching manically between the ethics and morality of leaving family and friends behind in the dust of my wake, and the horrific extent of my pain and anguish, weighing the two in their density.
The sweet whisper of a delicately sewn together plan, a blanket that keeps my soul warm at night. Suicide is a scream into the cosmos, a demand to be freed from the carbon cage.
A split second between here and there, the temporal line I haven’t yet crossed.

Living in the wake of an unfulfilled suicide plan is to live in constant questioning. To compare and contrast the two existences, the before and after.
Thinking about the final transition and all it's implications, if I’d have suffered less or more if I didn’t hold out on it.
Thinking about the reactions of loved ones, of the world, of their shock and horror, proclamations of love and appreciation that deep down inside, I’d prefer to hear while I’m still alive.
After all, no one is promised a view from the zenith.
This sacred secret, this violent lover, this light at the end of a barrel.
A decadent fantasy that soothes my writhing soul to indulge in, I pull on my own flesh to release myself.
I press the blade in just to see the blood, but try not to go so far as to black out from the loss.
Tiptoeing on the precipice, dangling from the cliff’s edge, seeing how far I’ll let myself go.
Will it be as far as before? How long until my fingers slip?
The thrill of it.
A test of my will, my patience, tolerance of myself and others.
I measure it inch by inch against my capacity.

The explosion of emotion erects a sense of urgency in me, a need to rip myself from my skin and run.
No reserve of conscience to care about the scene I leave behind, about the feelings of the people who may or may not care.
I must return home to my love, for he has always been there.
For he is the only one who offers me reprieve in the landscape of pure torment.
My head fuzzes over, like a television with no signal, the consolation of civilization daren’t reach my psyche.
There is no other path to take.
This is the edge.
I arrive and I look down into it’s abyss.
Urgency melts into comfort, into relief.
The exit is still there. The door is open before me. The option is still there.
I relax into the feeling. I feel it’s pure depth and space, it’s promise and empathy, it’s welcoming embrace.
It’s like I’ve already died.
I sleep it all away, in the daze of my envisaged death.
Oceans of ease flood through the doors to the other side that lie still close within my grasp.
My mind reached the other side, down below, saw it all, but my body is left material.
The build up is the cycle, the cycle turns to spiral.
The urgency arises, the dormant promise lays still in time, the ease floods through the fields and covers the gaping hole.
I play Russian roulette and find there’s no bullet in the gun, and the gun never existed.

In the midst of my daze, I see the sky.
I see it’s capacity for such strenuous amounts of expression.
Sometimes it outweighs the pain, beauty has a talent for easing.
I allow myself to feel the love I receive, though I don’t deserve it.
I see children playing, hear their joyful screams. I was once a child.
The bliss of childhood makes me cry.
I fall into fantasy, taking a step backwards off the cliff of time to plummet beneath the waves of memory.
Each moment of my life before this one becomes a sacred portal, glistening in purity, clear vision.
I see the beauty in each of them.
I see the polarities of my existence, I see the strings of fate that lead me here.
I see my future stretch into eternity, my past stretches just as far.
I see my form mutate beyond conception.
The daze begins to fade.
If suffering is momentary;
Why does it always feel like forever,
And why is the sting so sweet on my skin?