i'm going to be honest, all right, i don't even know where to go from here.

the thing is, suicidal people aren't the ones that commit suicide. because when you feel that way, it is slow. time takes forever. every movement is a struggle. every thing you have to do is a big deal. getting out of bed is hard. getting out of your room is harder. getting out of the house? please. doing things? not even a chance. it is conscious catatonia. it's sleeping while you're awake. you feel like dying because it would be quick and it's better than lying in this state of limbo where nothing happens and you have no desire and no willpower and no motivation to make anything happen.

so you don't kill yourself, either. especially as a writer - oh, god. you have to have your last word. and you've got so much to say and no idea how to say it. or maybe you've got exactly the idea of how to say it but then the next minute it's all wrong. and what about the method? so many potential ways, and if you don't succeed, what about the side effects? you start to worry more about brain damage and less about getting dead. pain pills are no good. not effective enough. a gunshot to the head's got pretty good chances - but what if you end up paralyzed instead? and a shot to the heart seems so much more poetic, but you've got bones there. everything complicates everything, and just the thought of going out to buy a rope, or waiting for a time when everyone's gone and the car's in the garage, or how you'll have to keep the water going so you won't stain the bathtub - it all becomes so exhausting. god, and the letter, back to the letter. what will you say? and in what form? actual letters? a post-it note? tape recorders? a video? handwriting letters seems more personal but then that involves a lot of thinking.

and here it is. the grand and exceedingly obsessive velocity of a thought. if you give a mouse a cookie - you know, it's like that. he's going to ask for milk. if you think a thought - it just provokes more thoughts, and questions, and the minor details, and all of the bullshit that nobody else cares about and nobody else pays attention to or that maybe you'll figure it out later or maybe it's not even relevant right now at this very moment but you've got to know right now at this very moment or it will make you crawl out of your skin. god, the not knowing. the unsure. it is the worst. it is a question that will drive you mad no matter what it's really about. so-and-so loves you. oh really? are you sure? well, no, i mean, yes, i mean, i think so, i don't know, how can you tell? well, they do this, but they don't say this, and et cetera. it goes on. it's an infinite loop and by the time you end back up at the original question you'll have never answered it but you sure have a more solid understanding of syntax & synapses now, and for fuck's sakes, your nerve endings are on fire.

it doesn't have to be about anything grand or important, either. say you're deciding what colour you should get this shirt in. you hold them all up and think well i like this colour and this colour and this colour, and definitely not this one, but i have a lot of this shade already so does that matter? but this colour doesn't look good on me, at least that's what so-and-so said, and they said that this colour does but i don't think i like it, and what the fuck is colour anyway, because it's just a reflection of light and who fucking cares what shade of white it is, you know, and why the fuck does the black cost more then the grey? for a version of our perceptions? oh, no, and what if i'm colourblind? what if i have been this whole time, and nobody's told me, what if i dress like a fucking freak or what if my socks aren't actually the same colour? should i go ask someone? let's see, who works here, hm... i think that person does. but maybe they're busy. maybe they've had a long day and they don't really care what colour my socks are. i mean am i supposed to care what colour they are? say they look at me funny if i ask. what would i do then? and i don't like talking to people. it makes me nervous, so so nervous, and maybe it's wrong to feel the need to put on a facade for a stranger, i mean why do i care what they think, but i do, maybe? no i don't. fuck them. fuck everyone. and you know what, fuck this shirt, too. i never wanted it in the first place.

this can take up hours of your time if you let it. but usually, all of this circular thinking happens in maybe, thirty seconds. your head keeps ticking on and on and pretty soon you get so tired of your own head-voice that you've either got to drown it out with music or try it out aloud, because wow, do you sound weirder than you think you do when you listen to yourself actually speak. take my advice, don't do this in public or when you're with people. they might understand if you explain your entire process of thinking, but they'll probably sooner just call a mental hospital.

and you can't let them do that. you know why? one of three reasons. a) you're not sick. and when i say this i mean you'd like to think you're not. you're perfectly rational. you've got the world spinning on a dime beneath your fingers and you feel just fine, thank you. b) you're a little sick, but you're not sick enough. you're not that bad yet. you don't have enough of a kicker. face it. your life is fine. a few bumps here in there but no major triggers. no huge emotionally traumatizing events that send you plummeting. maybe you made it all up, anyway. and if there's anything worse than getting admitted to a mental hospital, it's getting admitted to a mental hospital when you haven't earned the right to be there. you haven't even begun to feel what it's like to be outside yourself, you haven't done enough, you haven't warranted enough concern. you don't deserve it, not yet. so give it time.  or c) you're on the fast track to hell and you're not coming back. you're not getting better. it's a choice - and if you don't want to, you won't. so why bother?

what was i even going on about? right, the letter. you've written it all out several times and you've burnt all the old versions but by the time you're reading through the finished one it still feels undone. you notice a missing loop in a j and you misspelled conscious and god, how embarrassing would it be to have a poorly-written suicide note? and what about that handwriting? you call this neat? what about that black ink, why not use red, purple, blue. why ink at all? you could write it on your walls in paint, or blood. but maybe it's too long for that. back to the drawing board. you've got a computer, right? or somebody does. the local library does. you decide to type it up there because on the outside you don't want your parents to see the file on the computer and on the inside you hope you'll see someone there that will stop you. it comes and goes in varying degrees, and it comes and goes with varying degrees of denial, too. you do see someone there, actually - not anyone you really know, except you've sat next to them in one of your classes before. it's one of those people you don't really think about until you see them or their name comes up but they've always seemed so genuine. and i don't mean nice, but at least they don't hide. and all the sudden it's another spiral of thoughts. what about them? shouldn't i mention them too? and all the other people that were in that particular class? and - oh, god, what about my other classes? and the people i've passed in the halls? and the guy at the grocery store that's always so polite? and the girl i was friends with in kindergarten? so many people that are worth mentioning in a poetic way.

and you think, it's strange, how many people we know of but how few we really know.

this thought will gnaw on you a little bit. not in a way that's obvious. but there are a lot of people you haven't met yet that you meant to, and a lot of people you've still got something left to say too, and you don't have the breath or the words to say it. and a typed suicide note seems to impersonal, anyway. so you erase the names and the details and you leave it open on the windows '97 library computer; one of only five. you find there is a line behind you, and you rush out with your hood up and your head down. you spend the rest of the day wondering what that person was thinking when they read it. you hope to god they didn't see your face before they sat down. but then again, you don't really care.

time passes. a lot of it. it's uncomfortable and you lose track of it. march is still a mystery to you. you don't remember it last year, and you certainly don't remember it this year. you genuinely can't remember a damn thing you did last week but months ago feels like moments ago. time is all sorts of fucked up and it's gotten too tangled to try to stop. you just let it go. you go with it. let them drag you along. you forget to notice it like you notice the details in everything else, but it gets easier. you don't realize it at first but you haven't had the urge to swerve into traffic for a while. you don't know how many days it's been or if there was something to make it suddenly stop. i mean can thoughts be gradual? even when they're passing - they're still definite. at least partially. and you realize you haven't spent so much time thinking about drowning in the music that carries you but you've somehow got something better to think about.

the thought, which you thought was cancerous, was only a large, looming, but benign tumor of a question. it no longer consumes you the way it used to.

the debate in your head, should i, should i not, has stopped - at least for the time being.

this gives way for other things, thoughts you had no room for thinking about before. now it is vacant space. you fill it up, or try to. it's not hard to find things to attach yourself to if you're trying. you're an addictive person by nature and every new interest becomes an obsession. you start talking to someone - suddenly the idea of them is the most interesting character in the world. you start smoking, drinking - suddenly the feeling that lasts a night gives you pages upon pages of things to write about, because it slows you down to the point where the speed of thought is less frightening. it is not faster than the speed of light, or sound but it's fast enough. you start painting, or drawing, or playing the guitar. and the way that the paint and the iron stains your fingertips makes you remember the details again, the small beautiful things. another tantalizing thought crosses your mind and you push it away as quickly as it comes. it is not all that bad.

but it is in your blood to resist, so you do. you are sick, remember? you can't let yourself get better, there is no desire, and it feels so wrong. it feels like failing someone - maybe yourself. it feels like not being able to prove your point, and your disease has become an addiction that won't let go. and you get scared. scared that it was never that bad. scared that it was never bad at all. maybe just malingering. maybe you made it all up. maybe you were looking for attention. the idea is worst than the first one, and it stays. it is a parasite. suddenly it is everyone you have ever met that has said, it's not that big of a deal. or, it's not that important of a problem. or even - you don't have that problem. or worst - you don't have any problems. it makes you sick, and suddenly you don't. there is nothing wrong, there is nothing going on. no triggers, no footfalls, just a long winding path with a lot of thoughts you thought belonged to you when maybe they were just another character you let yourself become.

you'll spend all day trying to figure it out. all week. all month. all year. fuck. what caused this? what is this? is there a name for it? is it even anything? you'll spend so much time, time stretching and bending and slowing and moving too fast all at once just trying to figure it out because you know what you've felt like and you know what you've thought and you're not consistent and it changes all the time and you haven't got a single goddamn reason and YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? it means you're pathetic, that's what it means. it means you're an attention-whore, and a crybaby, and all the other names you've heard and that's worse than not knowing what to label it.

you just want to justify it. you just want to rationalize it. but it is who you are, nothing more, it is innate, it fluctuates all the time, and there's not a goddamn fucking thing that you can do about it but know that this will pass and this will pass and this will pass, whether it is good or whether it is bad.