Suicide
An empty pill bottle beside lifeless fingers…
A discharged gun next to a cold corpse…
Still waters swallowing the final breath…
People think of suicide as that final act,
And so it is.
But most of us commit the “petite mort”
Little acts of death, daily.
Prostrating ourselves before
The false gods of expectations and desire
Killing our souls, one act at a time.
(From Bring the Dawn, short stories and poems of hope and joy)
By Dixie Ann Black
The play on words in the poem above is meant to emphasize the fact that although we seem to enjoy so many pleasures of our times (exemplified in ‘la petite mort’), a lot of us are secretly dying inside. Behind the doors, the computer screens and the phone apps, we are lonelier than ever, more fearful than we can describe, and vulnerable to the lies that whisper in our ears, using our own voices to convince us that life is just too…hard….lonely…painful… to endure.
Suicide is on the rise in the U.S., especially among youth. “Suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 10–24 and has been increasing every year since 2007.” Health.ucdavis.edu
There is a deep call for us to pay attention, to know the signs; to make the time to take the time to be a safe port in the storms of life.
Dixie Ann Black (DAB)
