When fraught with gloom and psychic pain,
I all alone bemoan my state
like one who has sunk down again
into despair which drowns his fate.
Disconsolate beyond midnight,
I trouble dear God with my cries
as I bear this bipolar plight
with burning, red, tear-laden eyes.
The night is long—I feel distraught;
I long for rest to help forget
this sorrow\'s hold that has me wrought
like people in a crashing jet!
Inside, I feel the Reaper\'s scythe
as I think out my suicide;
I could slit my wrist with a knife
or pop pills to end this dark \"ride.\"
Or, like Sylvia Plath, I can
stick my head in a gaslight oven;
it\'s painless—sure! (But then why plan
a death that\'s so trite and certain?).
I think, too, of Virginia Woolf,
how she drowned herself in a lake;
I, too, feel swallowed in a gulf
of swirling sadness that could take
me to my death! Why do I feel
so unloved and alone now? Am
I so hopeless? Why do I feel
so worthless and empty? How am
I to know—(that) if I kill myself—
whether my loved ones won\'t miss me?
\"Don\'t quit!\" I think:—so I will myself
to live (as if God\'s saints kissed me)!
So I thus find solace in this—
that God and family do care.
And if I die I will be missed;
so I endure the deep Despair.
And then Rest comes. And I have peace.
And in the morn, I wake arising—
Hope breaks in (and gives me new lease):
and then my life I cease despising!