September makes sense to me. July and August don’t. Neither does February.

An ugly duckling. An attractive MILF. The studious co-Ed who abstains from dating studies for a test given by a professor with her roommate in his bed- but there is love there.

Grass withers and the flower fades but neither reaches it’s peak in the final moments before death – if a being without consciousness can even be said to really die.

It should snow on Christmas. I should be wearing shorts in June. I should see my parents on holidays.

It shouldn’t rain on a wedding. Managers should be older and with more education than employees. Pets shouldn’t die until the children are grown up.

If I love you you should love me. If you loan me a dollar you should let me keep it if I am only making a penny every other week.

If you are successful you should acknowledge that which is outside of you that brought about your success and if you are unsuccessful you should focus on what is within you that may have been lacking

I wish I had three lives
Three lives equals two mistakes
Then I could win – or at least stumble through the first level

I wish I had an energy bar
Then I would know exactly
How much abuse I could take before the damage became irreversible

I wish I had an instruction manual
Then I would know friend from foe
Instead of constantly mistaking friends for enemies and vice versa

I wish I could hit restart
An extra life isn’t going to fix this
Because I have fucked up so bad that the slate needs to be wiped clean

I wish I could buy another game
I am not really feeling this one anymore
The main character is weak and lame and I can’t see putting in the effort to see how this ends

Is it just me or is it ironic that a post about a man whose so desperate for attention that he self-immolates himself is lost on one of the few blogs that post regularly about suicide? Yeah it’s me, sorry no prose.

It is also ironic/tragic that this was not the only option for a suicide post I had over the past 18 or so days but chose this because I didn’t want to divulge personal details about an acquaintance even with pseudonym protection.  But like Benito sitting on it may have caused me to reconsider.  Why? Because victims of suicide, like victims of discrimination or homophobia all suffer when a member of the group does something that reflects poorly on the rest of us.  I am not saying that’s what Thomas Ball did, I can’t judge since I didn’t know him, but from what I gleaned it’s definitely a possibility.

When I first read about this I was angry.  My gut reaction was that this highly publicized event took away from the personal hurt my acquaintance was going through had similar struggles to mine.  I realize now that those thoughts were unworthy BUT there is a grain of truth to them.

We’re all familiar with the Buddhist monks who self-immolated to protest the Vietnam War.  These grand gestures drew our attention to senseless killing half a world away that was the product of complicated alliances and ideologies that made the folks on the ground least responsible for what was occurring.  And next to that we have a father in family court who owes a couple grand he really can’t afford to pay and might go to prison because of it (debtors’ prison! Get it?) Now personally, I think this guy’s act takes away from what the Buddhist Monks did.  I also don’t think he considered the excruciating pain caused by your own flesh burning.  If there is a club where people who committed suicide get to hang out in the Afterlife I am sure they make this guy buy drinks.

Again I am not taking away from this man’s suffering or anything like that.  I’m not saying what he went through was “no big deal” and doesn’t rise to the level of killing oneself.  What I am saying is that acting in the way he chose to act (he was clearly trying to make a statement) lessens the impact suicide has on the rest of us while blurring the message every other suicide sends us.  Think of your most insensitive friend.  The first one to make Tsunami or Earthquake joke in the aftermath of Japan and Haiti respectively.  Tell me you can’t hear him saying in a crowded bar “oh, that’s just another Thomas Ball” only to see several people scattered about and nodding?

Prayers for Thomas Ball and his family.  That said, if things get to be too much and you want to die but are scared of diluting the body of suicide testimonials please make it look like an accident.  Booze + pills, car + tree, snow + lost without a coat, it’s not that hard.  Just don’t hurt anyone.  Also take a moment to consider if this is really what you want.

When You Realize This is Life
You realize this is not a phase
This will not pass
This will not end
Where you are is where you have been and where you are going to be

When You Realize This is Life
You realize you will not look back on this and laugh
Nothing is going to turn around
In a year, two years, someday
The empty feeling in the pit of your stomach is permanent whether you like it or not

When You Realize This is Life
You realize the way you love will not be reciprocated
Nobody cares
People die and are not replaced
Life is awful and yet death is so inconceivable that you cling to that which you hate

Hi assholes! Here’s a poem for you

There once was a man named Wenis…

Forget it.  I don’t feel like rhyming despite the sarcastic remarks about why I should “stick to my 5th grade rhymes and stop trying to address serious issues.” And yes I deleted the comment and then quoted in the body of a post.  Sue me.  Particularly if you’re an unemployed lawyer.  It will give you something to do.

ANYway, since I will be the first to admit my last post on this subject was a little garbled, I am going to try again by simply pointing out one reason why suicide can be an action taken by a rational individual.  I cannot stress enough that 1) my writing this does not mean I personally am “suicidal” or 2) that suicide is or is ever the right decision.  Regardless of one’s faculties for logic the rammifications of such a violent act can never be fully predicted and the decision can never be overturned or mitigated.  Suicide makes no sense just like the death-penalty makes no sense from that perspective.

All right, on to the point.  A reason why suicide is statistically higher amongst our marginalized peers is that consciously or not, our life’s goal from a financial perspective is to achieve a zero networth, and to never be hounded about our loans ever again.  For better or for worse, suicide achieves that.

Let’s flesh this out a little bit.  Whether you took on massive debt $200k + for a highly specialized, professional degree and work in a pressure cooker (law firm, hospital, investment outfit) or you took out a fairly high level of debt but work in a career that’s never going to drop six figures on you until you’ve put in decades on the job (school, government) you start WAY behind the eight ball and your first order of business is to get rid of that debt so life, your REAL life, can begin.

So you put off getting married or buying a house, you don’t get the car you’ve always dreamed of.  You miss bachelor parties, the birth of nieces, nephews and kids whom you could have served as a godparent but for your inability to participate in normal social activities because you’re saving up to pay off that debt which is the responsible thing. 

After a few years you realize your youth is over, you’ll never find another person like the one you didn’t marry who has since moved on, the perfect little house on the corner sold and has skyrocketed in value and they’ve discontinued your dream car.  BUT at least your debt…has pretty much stayed the same if not grown due to the missed payment where life’s emergencies dictated you spend the money elsewhere.  Right around now the depression hits.  You blame your debt and it becomes your number 1 enemy.  All you want is for it to go away.

And see, here is where I find Mike Triforce useful.  If you step back, it’s easy to see that a better solution than suicide is to just stop caring about your debt.  Run up your credit, drink and whore, buy an even BETTER car and fill a swank bachelor/bachelorette pad with all the consumeristic crap a credit card you can default on can buy.  Heck, if you literally devoted 100% of your income to paying off your non-defaultable debt and the minimum balance on debt you can default on you probably could pay off your student loans in 15+ years, including the 7 years post-bankruptcy when you can’t really buy or do anything.  Or heck, even pull an Alpha Man, live off the grid and become an angry pseudo-crusader and just rage against things.

But if it’s happening to YOU then it’s right in your face and it can seem that suicide is the only way out, because again it achieves the goal.  Zero net worth.  Nobody bothers you for the cash ever again.  Now again, note how that logic is similar to the following: I want a high paying job.  Corporate lawyer is a high paying job.  I’ll go to a prestigious law school and be a corporate lawyer.  Bad decision? Of course.  Illogical? Not necessarily.   Really, both arguments are simply oversimplifications.  If you were to ask someone why they wanted to get out of debt they’d probably say “so I can keep my money and use it to build a life I can enjoy.” Heh, well if you make rorschach on your bedroom wall with your brains, that pretty much negates the purpose of getting out of debt.  Similarly, if you ask someone why they want a high paying job (presumably its not the stress or responsibility) they usually say “so I can make money and use it to build a life I can enjoy.” Heh, well debt shoots that idea in the foot, particularly if you’ve never worked or made a large purchase on credit and do not instinctively factor taxes and interest into everything you do.

The point is we need to stop treating suicide as the symptom of a mental disease.  That doesn’t mean that certain individuals who DO have a mental imbalance (like depression) don’t commit suicide, it’s simply that there is no pure ”suicidal.”  There are simply scenarios where suicide might seem like the most attractive option for dealing with a real or perceived problem.

I wish I had a real job.  I wish I could fly.

But mostly I don’t want to die.

Others do with pills and rope

Express a very different hope.

They are not the same as I.

Perhaps they really want to die.

I asked a man upon the brink

To take a big step back and think

Before he swallowed pills and more

And passed through the one way door

…Perhaps there is something worth living for?

But he is not the same as I

Perhaps he really wants to die.

He expressed a certain dream

Which involved a sporting team

Perhaps it’d be ok

If only they could win the day

A small light in infinite blackness.

Now of course I understood

Just as well as anyone could

A common form of inspiration that causes us to stop looking longingly at the hearse as it takes a shell to the beach

Now of course if the team should lose

What to stop him from taking pills and booze

To do what he had a mind to do in the first place?

For me, it’s called next year.

But he is not the same as I.

Perhaps it is his time to die.

If I could watch the World From the Moon
I’d Make Gravity like Anger
Directed not at the center of Mass
But Everywhere and Nowhere at the Same Time

If I could Watch the World From the Moon
I’d Make Energy Like Anger
Always Created Rarely Destroyed
And Frequently Transferred from One Body to Another

If I could watch the World From the Moon
I’d Make the Weather like Anger
Summer One Day Winter the Next
Tornadoes Would Form Over Water

If I Could Watch the World From the Moon
I’d Give the Animals My Anger
The World would go Vegan
With or without People

If I Could Watch the World From the Moon
I’d Give the Sun My Anger
The Sun is Passive Aggressive
It Doesnt associate with those who have fallen out of favor

If I Could Watch the World From the Moon
I Might Take Away all the Anger
Perhaps…If I Were Missed
Then At Least I’d Have Something on the Moon

Besides Anger

I have a hate allergy
My parents owned a restaurant
Where I breathed in second hand hate for 18 years
I guess shouldn’t smoke but the tobacco is so sweet

I am hated for Who I Am
I hate because of what others have done
I hate that I hate and I choke on hate
But sometimes just sometimes it’s better than air

I get beaten and down trodden
I don’t give up or in because I have nothing
I just stop and welcome my friend darkness
Darkness wants to be more than just friends

But then I feel the hate swelling in my upper chest
This is what the wretch wanted before he found grac
My bloodshot tear crusted eyes burst open
Darkness says she’ll come back at a better time

I Choke on Hate
It is an awful by product of the impure fuel that drives me
I want to go green
But this car is so so sexy

I am Lost
A Wanderer for a Decade
There is a place I cannot find

My Wrong Turns
They Make Themselves Known
But Time is a One Way No Stopping Street

If Only
Just Five Years Ago
I know I could fix this despite everything else

If Only
Three Years Ago
It Would Be Ok Now Despite Everything Else

If Only
Just 18 Months Ago
I wouldn’t be trapped now despite everything else

Now
Another Crossroads
When will my folly here become clear?

Madness
Indecison, anxiety, shame and paralysis
I refuse to continue only to be mocked by a shadow cast by that which I cannot touch

I sit
I feed habits I wish were addictions
Quitting a drug is almost universally accepted as a step in the right direction

The right direction
Not the cycle of broken lives
So elusive just out of reach clear from every perspective but mine

Put 2010 behind you.
Look forward to a debt free 2012
Sure. Why not?

But I’m through putting things behind me
I am keeping the past in front where I can see it
Besides the present is ugly
And I can’t see the future through the haze

Debt is literally the past coming back to haunt you
Debt is like a gas station a block away on a one way street but in the wrong direction. And you are just about out of gas. If only you could go back- but you can’t. Instead you’ll have to push a car a long long distance which will take a long long time.

What were you thinking a block ago? You knew how much gas you had…but you believed the lies they told you about the mileage. Now the red light is on but it’s too late to go back.

You get out to push. You expect the mocking jeers of those with gassed up cars but you never expected the insults and the rotten vegetables from the pedestrians who never drive. They remember the scorn of those driving by and their j willingness to slow down as they crossed the street. They think you’re still one of them.

You want to abandon your car but what if their is a gas station just over that next hill?

By the time you find a gas station you find the fuel is only compatible with newer cars. You are already a dinosaur.

In a fit of madness you tell yourself that you can make fuel out of blood, urine and weak tea, the only things at your disposal. In your madness you convince yourself that not only is this fuel, but a super fuel that will make your car fly.

But you need momentum. So you load your car up at the top of a hill overlooking a cliff, give it a push and hop inside.  Either the car will start with a tank full of body fluids and fly without wings or you will crash to the earth.

And you will burn.

But go ahead.  I hope you soar. if you do pick me up. I’ll be lying face down in the gutter.

But as for me I am through putting the past behind me…there’s just no more room back there.