Putting Out the Lights

[Deuce]

I've been one half step away. I've had the rope around my neck and tied securely but I couldn't finish it. I've cut myself (not across to the hospital, but down to the morgue), and watched it bleed, then stopped it. I've written a few notes, and torn them up.

It's always been prompted by marital strife. It's that way now. Fortunately, the current balance of emotions is heaviest on anger and frustration, and not despair. Despair is the killer. A lack of hope is about as bad as a lack of oxygen. It all seems so black, so unendingly painful. A surcease of pain is what I sought. And a little posthumous appreciation. That's stupid. I was temporarily stupid.

I have days, sometimes weeks where I don't think about killing myself. Those are good days. But that's never permanent. The trouble, the pain is always there. It ebbs and flows. When it floods me, and I can't make it stop or see the end, I hear it's siren call. Come. Rest. I hear the voice now, but it's distant. I can resist.

But I've felt the darkness mute the noonday sun, and that voice drips it's bittersweet poison into my ear, come, end the pain. Just one step, and you'll be free. It can be very, very appealing, at those times. But so far, so far, I gag and choke on those words, and live. In pain, but living. So far, so good.