For Those Considering Suicide

For Those Considering Suicide

After “All The Way Through” by Bane

Scientists call the seabed a wasteland
lifeless for a thousand miles,
but there is a miracle in its persistence,
how it endures under all that depth,
how it resists all that pressure.

If you decide to stop your walking,
but the rope snaps like your last nerve
or the belt buckle unpins itself
or your blood clots,
your hemoglobin rebels
against razor blade
like a corporal disobeying
his lieutenant’s order to kill
if your kidneys and liver tear
the poison out of your veins in gross defiance,

if your brain is nothing but a wailing chorus
of broken glass throats
and your only audience is a mute God,
trust in your flesh,
this machine designed so well for survival
that it completely regenerates every seven years.

Trust a heart wise enough to ignore your calls
not to beat, not to break.
Trust muscles that bruise when struck,
trust eyes that thirst for sunlight
and scowl against the wind.
Trust the rhythm of your breath;
it will not betray you.

I won’t lie to you.
The point is not that life is good
the point is that it’s worth
ten thousand kicks in the ribs
to snatch out one motherfucker’s eye
and force him
to remember your name.
This is the only hope I know.

I’m not stupid enough
to tell you to
feel thankful for the ghost
of your breath
in the pitiless moonlight.

But I am desperate enough to tell you that
I am thankful
for the beautiful ghost
still aching inside your frame.

I pray it stays there.

In a world where death always wins,
I’m begging you not to hand it
any more premature victories.

In a world that has committed
so many crimes against you,
commit one against the world
and survive.
Today, two wrongs keep you alive.

I know you can’t wait on a miracle.
But the truth is
miracles are just what happens
when your mind gives meaning
to unfathomable joy.

Joy is not the cessation of pain.
It’s just your breath
finding the blessing of air
as your arms and legs
thrash against a raging ocean.
It’s the laugh you manage
at your mother’s funeral.

Joy is every morning I wake up
with you still in this world.

This world is still for you.

Come unto me,
amidst all this witnessless sacrifice.
If you look up into the night sky
and all you see
is just the moon
and the stars
and all the metaphors are stillborn inside of you,
come unto me,
this motherless firstborn son
made of nothing
but frayed cotton and moth wings,
and throw your weight onto me,
collapse like a monument to
every deaf, dead god;
I will carry you on bent back
without a prayer, without a whisper.
When the banshees of your brain chemistry
refuse to cease their howling
come unto me
and I will show you
how I can scream louder,
how we can scream together
into all this pitiless darkness.

Abide with me.

And we will call this
a miracle.