*Content Warning: suicide, implied past attempt, mentions of death/dying, medication abuse
therapy letter #265
i’m gonna show you step by step how to crawl back in. the shutters are closed. can you walk a straight line? fall on the floor and laugh at yourself because this is what you’ve always known best
the sun is rising and you’re plummeting. down and down and the sheets become your skin and you’re back home inside an empty house. you’re the mattress and the dark and the little round pills you were never prescribed
you’ll tell me it’s different this time and i’ll answer it feels just the same. i know a lot of things. i know this and i know how it looks on me best
maybe the house isn’t empty. i spread through it like the vines in my backyard until i become every room and it feels like i’m living in it again. i put brick on top of brick and i hold the blueprint inside me so no one can dismantle it because i’m alive again and because everything else has been play pretend
i don’t want to be sad. i want to swallow it and lock it in my chest as it becomes hollow and painful and i press my hand to it to push it further in. this is a craft that took years to develop. it’s the only thing i’m good at and i hate being ignorant and myself and this is the most lovable part of me. in a desperate attempt to relate, i asked him: do you feel it too? are we in this together? i wish this for me even when you don’t. i don’t wish this for you but at least we’d have something to talk about
i’ve been crossing days off my calendar for years and today is marked with pink sharpies and a heart and nine boxes of drugs. i count them to make sure; then i count them again for comfort. i have the numbers memorized. then grabbing a bottle of gin then swallowing it all down. oh, i’ve learned a lot. my knowledge can kill me this time
i’m planning ahead when i haven’t got a case to present yet. but the roads i’ve walked look all the same and at the end stand letter upon letter i shouldn’t have let anyone read
the first step is always the hardest but i already know what taking it feels like
do you?
take your meds. or skip them. or double the dose. fly high or sink under and wonder why what’s happening is happening and ignore it’s all your fault. you’re too aware of yourself and the choices you make—your awareness is dangerous and your choices are even worse, whatever that means, and you don’t know why you do what you do anymore. you want to live, don’t you? you want to be okay, right? you want to die so badly the consequences of your actions aren’t consequences anymore—they’re just means to an end and you’re headed straight home.
everyone catches you dancing and spinning and laughing too loud and bouncing in place and the tv static under your skin, jittery and uncomfortable. you can’t focus, you talk too fast, you think too much when you shouldn’t and not enough when you should. the alcohol, the smoking, the loud music, your heart beating out of your chest. it makes you interesting and fun. it makes you worth keeping around. it’s better than not getting out of bed and not eating and not showering and you’re panting, dizzy, but at least there’s no hole where your chest is supposed to go. at least you wake up every morning. at least you want it that way. you barely sleep but at least you want to live and it’s better than wanting to die. who cares it’s synthetic, who cares it’s not healthy, who cares you did this to yourself. at least you want to live
Skye Saul (she/her), also simply known as Skye, is a 27-year-old girl, born and raised in Argentina. Her poetic journey started in 2015, mostly about the chewed edges of mental illness. Years after successful treatment for Bipolar-NOS, she began to explore other topics: love, self-esteem and friendship, but mental illness is the reason she started writing—and that’s a hard relationship to break up.
Tumblr: @lithiumcarbonated
Twitter: @deathquells