I WANT TO DIE TODAY

 The recent spate of suicides among young talented human beings shows our shallow approach to the issue of mental especially in the media. They take their travelling circus across networks searching for sensationalism, carrying out their trials before even the courts get into the act! There is no attempt to focus on mental health issues and all we hear are idiotic opinions that trivialize mental health!

NOBODY, NOBODY KNOWS! We do not know the demons, real or imagined, that drive a human being to take his or her own life. We can add this to the long line of existential questions - Why are we here? Does life have any meaning? Why do humans take their own lives? etc. etc. 

We can only imagine and this poem is just my imagination and this poem attempts to create that scenario when the fateful event takes place. I, too, do not know and I never will know!

I WANT TO DIE TODAY

I look at my scaffold, ceiling high,
I want to cry, but suppress a sigh,
The dimming light fades to zero,
I realise now I am no shining hero!

One more time I look out my window
At the steeple, dome and minaret,
Edifices of hope, yet I'm sinking low,
Cards are stacked, have to pay my debt!

Teens practice dance and hip-hop,
Only the young can go over the top,
An old man navigates his tomorrows,
Stealing time and moments he borrows!

Mother and child bask in sunshine,
But this is their happiness, not mine,
Stable planet will rotate on its reliable axis,
As surely as people die and pay their taxes!

Thoughts peer over unconsciousness, dark hedges,
Yesterday’s dreams hang at the ends of ledges,
Ghostly winds blow fallen leaves in my tracks,
As for life, it’s over, fallen between the cracks!

Rising to my scaffold for few seconds of free fall,
Some will see greatness, a man ten feet tall,
Others will wonder where my abject failure lay,
When mould was broken, he was made of clay!

Suddenly there will be experts everywhere,
All and sundry will seem to mourn and care,
They will speculate, theorise with indignation,
Slow train of blame stopping at every station!

Mental illness is a maximum security prison,
Seizing one’s being with chills and frisson,
The old man wants to live beyond forever,
Not me. I want to die today. Life’s ties sever.

 

Antonio Rodrigues