"Only with the heart can we know and understand the secrets of the soul."
----
Dick Innes


I took offense to my own existence this morning. As a retort, I wrote a suicide letter.

In that letter, I wrote why I thought I would have done this. It is an atrocious notion; something that I have thought about doing. Seriously thought about doing. That’s another therapy session.

This morning, I asked myself, “Self, if you wrote your suicide letter, what would you say? Who would you address? Are there people whom you would not want to leave terms of endearment?” I found after a few moments, that not only did I have a lot to say in almost three pages in as many minutes, it seemed, but I knew who I wanted to leave a note too, and I would want to leave some guilty pleasures that made me feel they were against me, including a couple of very close relatives.

I stopped writing for whatever reason. I was somehow diverted, but as I wrote, my thoughts seemed to move faster than the mighty sword I held in my hands.

Is there something wrong with me? Is it just me? Am I angry? Am I bitter?

This I know as fact: I have negative feelings inside me. I harbor them, and they encase me. I’ve often said that I’m the type of person that would say that Mother Theresa was too short. I’d say the ice cream was too cold. I’d say that… well, you get the point.

The irony of this is that my letter started with the ability of my disappearing with nary a care. Yeah, you’ve heard this before, but not the twist part. I was writing the letter after a fitful sleep in my best friend’s home. I awoke just shy of 6am in a startling condition that has never happened to me in my life: I did not immediately know where I was. I acclimated myself then recalled the circumstances. My cousin needed to go to Memphis to get his heart checked, and, though I cannot swear to it, I was the only person he had told that he needed to go. I had done some other things over the last few weeks that people had asked of me. And suicide crossed my mind like an old memory that I try to forget to no avail.

Right now, the letter is set aside in a book that I want to read, hidden from others, and perhaps, myself.

My girlfriend came out later and asked me what I was doing.

“Oh, just writing a suicide letter.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.”

If but for no other reason than to appreciate her sense of humor the way nobody else can, I’ll stick around.

Labels: My Writing