12 Months' Difference

If you asked me last year if I wanted to be alive
The answer would be a resounding “no.”
My birthday felt as cold and desolate as it’s early winter date
and friends’ celebratory cheers felt more like insults.
My illness mocked me: “Why are you still here?”
I skipped out on work and went to school instead
and sat idly in classrooms watching time as it tick-tick-ticked by
and I couldn’t focus because I was so sick from worry
that I could feel the bile begin to rot my teeth.
Everything ahead of me seemed so unclear.

By October I was numb, and my soul was crumbling.
I could feel myself turning like the Autumn leaves;
come one gust of wind too strong and I would surely fall.
I had no purpose, no ambition, and no direction,
all I had was an amassing pile of student loan debt.
Then my family was ripped up from its’ roots
with the loss of its’ patriarch, my last living grandparent,
after a long and tedious span of time during which
we watched the strength seep out of him
and I withered further with every moment that I wept.

Christmas wasn’t the same that year.
Babies had been born and new lovers were brought
but the house seemed emptier than it ever had.
The absence of Holiday Cheer was as evident as my grandpa’s,
so I stuffed my face with cookies to keep from crying.
Soon after, we lost our sweet cousin Suzy to suicide.
A preventable situation, mishandled entirely,
leaving her dead at the end of a computer-cable noose,
and me to wonder when I had gotten so selfish
because instead of morning her loss, I dreamt of dying.

Another birthday passed, just as hopeless as the last.
I was scared shitless because I knew it wasn’t normal
that I considered throwing my car off an overpass
every time I got behind the damned steering wheel,
but it didn’t stop the thought from popping into my head.
So I finally asked for help. I saw therapist after therapist.
I cried so hard I nearly puked and took medicine so harsh that I did.
Things are finally getting to be stable. I can smile now but
if you asked me if I wanted to be alive, the answer is only “sometimes,”
because most times, I still feel like I’m already half-dead.