Downward Spiral (March 9, 2018)

Down the darkest corridor

I do walk through

Seeing the merest hint

Of light

Before me.

Torturing me

These brief interludes

Of cruel mirages

Caressing my soul.

Only

To come crashing down

Bathing me

In the renewal

Of darkness.

As days flow

Into weeks

And later

Into months.

Where time is

Only measured by

The changing

Of seasons.

My voice

A muted sound

Moves from being threatened

To endangered species list

As my words vanish

From sight.

Knowing

The dangerous sound

That silence is

For a person

Like myself.

There's no escaping

Once labelled extinct

As Death takes

My soul.

Therisa © 2018

Author's note: On the weekend of February 3rd and 4th, after my 2018 birthday, I was having active suicidal thoughts. This the first time that this has occurred, since the holiday season of 2010-11, when I last attempted suicide. What this meant for me, I was hearing, in greater clarity these self-harming thoughts. That as far as it got for me, during this time, I was battling a virus for eight days. A belated birthday present for myself. Am no longer having active suicidal thoughts, since then.

My Butterfly Effect (May 28, 2016)

A simple mistake

In misreading

The 519* support group

Schedule.

Finding myself

Standing

Before

The wrong group.

Brimming full

With destructive anger

And corrosive pain

From mom's rejection.

Just two weeks

Previously

On the Canada Day

Long weekend.

Looking for

A safe shelter

To ease my burden

With those

Who would understand.

Timidly

I enter

The group room.

Only then

Did I realize

My blunder.

Shaking

Like an autumn leaf

In a September breeze.

I asked

The F2M group

For a kind ear

To listen to

My story.

As I released

The pent-up energy

In a healing circle.

Never realizing

Until later.

A simple "no"

From them.

And I

No longer

Among the living

That weekend.

Or graced

By the lasting

And healing friendship

Of Z.

This July

We'll celebrate

Ten years

Of this mistake.

Therisa © 2016

Author's note: After my mom's rejection of me, on Canada Day 2006, I had spun down, into the blackest depression, which, almost cost me, my life and job, at the time. With the help of Z, I have been rebuilding my life, ever since. Will admit, there are times, I feel overwhelm, by everything that has happened to me, especially, during the flashbacks, and crippling anxiety attacks.

*519: a community centre, in Toronto, that serves the needs of local residents and the LGBT+ community of the greater Toronto area. It's called, the 519, due to its address, 519 Church St, in the heart of Toronto's gay village.