This one… this one was a little unexpected. This piece also came on a Saturday night after church and dinner, Saturday April 13. The initial concept and image popped into my head, but after I sat and wrote it all out, it ended differently and took a different tone than I initially thought. For a while after that, I didn’t see it as “powerful” or “intense” as my others, particularly poem two. But then God showed me in a very real way just how much truth these words hold, and now I am so grateful and honored that He is using me to share such a powerful truth.

This is the preface from the night I actually wrote the poem…
“I think it’s time for another white knuckled finger to begin the process of letting go. It’s time for another stone piece of my walls to be chilled away and thrown into the sea.”

There are those lights again.
So often red and white,
sometimes blue as well.
I can hear the noise, too,
though the noise seems to trigger
much harsher feelings.
But,
while those lights often trigger
my love and concern for others,
it also sends me
to a place of immense curiosity.
Curiosity… and longing.
Curiosity and the what ifs.
What if I did go off the deep end…
What if I did do something stupid…
What if I did attempt…
What would happen?
Curiosity and longing.
Longing for what could be,
what could have been.
Longing for someone,
anyone,
to see through my mask
to see past my walls.
Longing to be fully known
AND fully loved.
Longing for anyone to see my pain,
to truly see my pain
and the living hell it so often brings.
And finally
a longing to NOT start pondering
my hypothetical suicide,
past, present, or future,
every time I see those lights,
and every time I hear those sounds.
Curiosity and longing.
Curiosity as to what
a life of true freedom would look like.
Curiosity as to how in the hell
that could ever actually happen.
And quite honestly,
what it would be like
to not think about these things
every time I see those lights.
But also,
and back to that dark place,
a longing to make myself disappear
without leaving
that horrific wake of grief
forever behind me.
I snap myself back to reality
and remind myself that
suicide without debilitating pain
is quite simply
not humanly possible.
I see those lights,
and my heart begins to hurt.
It hurts for all the others
who feel the same pain,
and it hurts because I know
that this desire will never become reality.
So… I press on.
Without any idea why.
Hell, I don’t even know how.
Still… I press on.
Because He is with me
even when I can’t see Him,
even when I can’t feel Him.
I would be completely lying
if I tried to tell you
that those red and white lights
no longer send my mind reeling.
They sure as hell do,
you better believe that they do.
But I know that the first step
the very first step
towards that seemingly unattainable healing
is to shine the bright light
to the darkest parts of my life.
So… here I am.
I still so often ask the what ifs
surrounding my hypothetical suicide.
But… I choose to stay.
I may be staying for everyone else,
everyone else besides myself –
but what matters in this moment
is that I choose to stay.
Despite the lights and the what ifs,
despite my pain.
I choose to stay.