holding on for you
those who life has defeated
gnome who cares deeply
Tag: suicide
Two Creatives Getting Creative
As many of you know, I’m traveling again. This time, I’m in Burnsville, NC, with my dear friend Gail Leadenham. It’s been too long since we’ve seen each other, and I’m so happy to spend this time with her in the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
She and I decided to participate in this week’s Wordle. I hope you enjoy my weekly contribution as well as hers. It was fun to see how we would interpret the prompt words. It was interesting how we both went dark and sad. We are so morose! Also, we agreed that the titles for both pieces should be the same, only the stories are a bit different.
On Death’s Door
I wake to darkness, my buried secrets spilling out of me like vomit, making me feel wretched and ill. I weep inconsolably with regret and fiery anger. An unbearable, vast loneliness silently creeps into my psyche, rendering me unable to speak—like drowning in an invisible river. What a novel way to leave this world (insert sarcasm here, I think to myself, with a smile)—a wannabe Virginia Woolf not wanting to face reality. How dramatic. But yet, a plan takes shape. My demise will be forthcoming, and probably sooner than I’d anticipated. I ache with an intense pain being so alone.
~~~~~~~~~~
On Death’s Door
The wake of my momma was filled with the darkness of the secrets kept hidden in the vast mystery of her death. Silently, I was unable to navigate the river of questions that could fill a novel. It was as though my world couldn’t face the ache of being alone. Momma could enter a disparaged room and, within minutes, bring a smile to everyone’s lips. But now, that once vibrant 91-year-old woman had clearly been neglected. I can still visualize my sweet momma’s face in a final death grip, eyes and mouth wide open in the recesses of my mind.
Hidden Sadness
Inspired by Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – Flamboyant & Reena’s Xploration Challenge #307
He watched the sun set over the horizon, then took a deep breath and jumped.
You see, he wasn’t as flamboyant as everyone thought he was. He made life look exciting and easy while his insides slowly imploded with each new day. It was all a sham, and he was a great actor. The world around him was fooled and incredibly shocked when they read about his demise.
No one knew of the loneliness he felt and had endured since childhood. When he became an “adult,” it got too real for him. He felt the only way out was death.
Ill-Made
Redux
she was damaged by circumstance
against her will
the patterns of dysfunction became habits for life
she claimed her internal baggage to carry onward
life was always challenging
the rewards were seemingly unattainable
happiness was strived for but just out of reach
a bitter, lonely end was her destiny
and inevitably
she ceased to exist
Originally posted October 18,2018, on I Write Her; posted here with revisions.
Imminent Danger
survival hits different
for every being on this earth
adults and children
kept and free animals
even our beloved planet
facing physical hardships
whether risking living
with little food
or minuscule comfort
or none at all
whether beat into submission
before they could find their voice
or any number of unbearable situations
through no other reason
than a perfect storm
coming together by chance
life’s variables colliding just because
those unlucky enough
to always be on the end of surviving
the punishments doled out
by indiscriminate and unfortunate circumstances
or by forceful, living monsters
created by an evil social consciousness
insinuating their vileness
into the vulnerable lives of the innocent
survival hits different
and sometimes
not at all
Freya Pickard
Abyss*
shriek into the void
dark shadows shatter, dissolve
still empty inside
alone in abyss
my screams no longer echo
finally absorbed
a soul-touching croon
expands to vast crescendo
calls me back to life
*You can hear a reading of this piece on Freya’s YouTube Channel
Alive
clasped closely
– I do not wish to escape
held by darkness
– his cold embrace, a refuge
he lives
– because of my blood
I am not yet dead
– he needs me alive
Victim
docile, I submit
ecstasy, then sudden pain
give myself freely
moonlit muscles enfold me
metallic kisses drown me
you cannot live without me
I need you to sustain me
what have you woken
in the embers of my soul –
dark flame of your heart
Attitude
with an
attitude as
bad as my boots, I strut,
swagger and sneer – untouchable
bite me!
killing for sheer adrenaline
no emotion this side
of death; why should
I care?
Suicide
no one hears me
therefore I do not exist
pale ghost in shadow
I step out into sunlight
erupt in blaze of glory
~~~
Freya Pickard is the author of The Kaerling series, an epic fantasy. She writes mainly fantasy tales and creates poetry in order to rest the prose side of her brain. She finds her inspiration in the ocean, beautifully written books, and vinyl music (particularly heavy metal and rock). Freya was featured twice in The Short of It – May 2020 and October 2020. Her piece, Sailing, featured in the first anthology – was selected for the Pushcart Prize.
Submissions are now closed but if you’d like to be featured on The Short of It in the future,
click here for the submissions guidelines.
Going Down
Redux
the light slowly leaving
dolor creeping into this blank space in my head
swallowed up in this ever-deepening gray haze minimizing my liveliness
pitch-blackness, my old friend, immobilizing me again
no energy, desire, motivation or strength
this thick sadness creates a loneliness where hope can’t creep in
courage oozes away
one drop after another of life leaking to somewhere it can’t return from
goals left to die in the waves of this depression
silent tears pitching between wet, heavy sobs
an aching all-encompassing deep pain leaving invisible scars
severe despondency and dejection
i doubt life can go on
it’s a reality in my head not worth living
escape from that which continually pulls me down feels impossible
this devastating extreme of the opposite of happy
it feels like i’m stolen from me
i feel over
Don’t Gogh
Years of depression punctuated by obsessive creativity brought him closer to the inevitable. Alcohol became his chosen poison. Lacking the proper nutrition and suffering from frequent bouts of insomnia – it only propelled him deeper into the black abyss. The delusions which led to his self-mutilation only further supported the theory – he was mad, and he felt all alone.
He had lost everything of value to him. There was an empty canvas on the easel, his colors, and tools. What would he paint?
Nothing. He was at his self-inflicted end. “The sadness will last forever,” were Vincent’s final words.
In Mourning
we are suffocating
in the plumes of silence
hopes and dreams
put on hold
uncertainty
in our present
plans shelved
for another tomorrow
a fierce struggle to live
while quietly dying
anger, isolation, despair
this too shall pass they say
… but not soon enough for some
Reblog – There are no rehearsals left, only curtain fall by Candice Louisa Daquin
This piece will take you to the depths of sorrow and despair. Oof! It’s certainly one that hit home for me!
Originally published on Hijacked Amygdala 3/1/20
As it grows dark
As the corners of today’s page furl
Empty rooms, homes without windows, drugs without users, a body untouchable, growing cold
As if alight sparing flame
Never to relive
Nor consume nor nourish
This terrible emptiness
As she feels the pain that comes afterward
Inevitable. Old. Crushing. Familiar.
She wants to run to you
But you’re long gone, if ever present
Diminished and relinquished
Pouring medicine down the drain, till needful of no refreshment
Even beauty turns to stone
Even love robs itself destitute
As lovers hate the very thing that made them burn
The taste in her mouth of ashes
Written across her brow in heavy stroke
The cross, the lantern, the falsehood
This room loses light as she gradually declines
On her knees, so many years without touch; lies in place of comfort
Words growing smaller and smaller
A shadow book within a grace freshly dug, till she can see no more but the internal crush of loss
She was an addictive personality who couldn’t get out of her mould, it stuck like jello, that tendency toward
Melancholy and suicide
If you find her dead you can bet one of her vices is responsible
When she meets people who have not soaked their souls in cigarettes and vodka
Feeling more in the daytime bar than ever something clean and starched
Broken girl parts
Snapped in half before they knew how to stand up
Hers is a sickness, dances in pearls around her neck till pulled tight
Wanting the abyss of psychedelic music and dream of hashish
Intoxicate the pain, numb further urge to destroy what’s left
And push yourself inside me, join the sorrow dot by dot till we both burst
Such is the loveliness of sex in the fulment of grief
Replacing one pain with another small death
The telephone doesn’t ring
She doesn’t call or receive these days
The silence as palpable as the knife she carves her arms into ribbons with
They’ve danced this dance before
There are no rehearsals left, just curtain fall
Think of how it felt, long ago
Before the end, in the middle, lost now
The heaviness of her wanting is blunted by knowing
These people have only their irrevocable actions
Sparring with one another, the blood of first strike hitting white snow in masterpiece
Crimson against a hundred promises, a new form of murder
Sitting, watching herself go through the motions
Good girl who kisses her loved one, tucks in the bed sheets tight
Dreaming of broken glass down her throat, three grey birds and a fingerful of coke
The rage of impotence across flayed landscapes
That flesh and sinew long hung to cure, speaks nothing
Doesn’t forget the rebuke, even as forgiveness is yoked, chain on soft skin
To every ending
Time ticks down without mercy, and if she lives to your age
Just like you, setting the tableaux of your life, there’ll be nothing to say
But the horror of silence before deafening rain
Then she picks up her existing and leaves
Soon it seems, she was never there, just a handful of misspoken words and rage
Drinking clouds, the truth, spares the speaker
She has a generation of distillers and eyes that carry pain as if it were their child
Tonight she won’t be meeting you, she’ll keep on driving
There’s a drop off somewhere, she knows, a fateful road where the turn is sharp
And unexpected
Even for the most familiar driver
It takes a kind of control
She never ever possessed.
I Write Her 