Your favorite place to die

Staring death in the face,

Every day I walk the line

Between sanity and insanity

A tightrope that rises higher and higher

The fall more deadly every moment

You don’t know how lucky you are

You people who don’t know what the edge looks like

You people who’ve never seen the bottom

You people who know nothing of true despair

Of grasping for life and holding on with your teeth

While every memory you have and every dream you hoped to come true plays like a movie in your mind

And you can smell the flowers in the field you ran in as a child

And your grandmother’s perfume

And the skin of your first love

And the rush comes over you like warm water

And it cradles you and eases you closer to death

Until slowly you become numb and pick up the razor, the pills, the chemicals

Or you step closer to the side of the bridge

And you can feel yourself dying

Feel what it would be like if you didn’t have to feel

And you begin to know that relief

Of the pressure lifted off

And a smile, an inner smile comes over you as you are beckoned forward

But then you stop

Something makes you stop

If you are lucky

And you take a step back

And you put down the chemicals, pills, or razor

And the tears that had been surging from your eyes,

Stop

And suddenly, as if in a dream

You become aware, so aware

Of every tiny thing

The way the tiles are arranged and caulked together

The way your skin feels under your own touch

The taste of the tears that fell into your mouth

Even something as meaningless as a tiny spot of paint out of place on the wall

And for a moment or two

You float inside this heightened awareness

And remember what it is like to be alive

What a baby must feel when he first experiences the world

And for those brief moments, everything is ok

And you are ready to face the world

…

Until the next time you find yourself

In your favorite place

To die