Poem: Cantata

Fills me with something, better than sensation.

Pure. Use it to blot out the world, and to be of it.

Trade touch for this, sight, limb and sense

to live bathed in it. Rise and fall, stops breath

thought and reason. Wells inside, consumes, feeds.

Fulfills and makes me want, everything in this.

For a moment, perfection, echoing. Enough. 

Joyous. Living.

Poem: Kindest Thing

The kindest thing you did,
Was to draw me a portrait
Of someone who never existed.
Gone while she was still an idea
You gave her form, face and life,
Pieced her together for me.

The blue of here eyes, like mine,
You painted her smiling
So I could imagine giving her
A life where she was happy.
A delicacy in the curve of her jaw
Because she was to be beautiful.

The shell of her ear, curl of her hair,
You made her real again,
Instead of a sad story I think about
In the darkness before dawn.
In the absence of anything like hope
All I wanted was to see her face.

You made her into a person at last
Instead of being a secret
That went away namelessly
Before anybody had found us out.
You found a way to give her to me
And it was the kindest thing.

Poem: Trade

Everything that I am.

All that I believe in.

If it means you are here.

Even if I do not get to see you,

Or know you,

Or love you.

They can have anything

Because this is too hard.

My heart is breaking. 

Poem: Billy

It was not that kind of loss.

Not like those gone before who left me,

breathless and broken in my grief.

Someone took me to one side and whispered it

you had succumbed at last to the dying,

that everyone knew was coming.

Quietly sad, I thought about about

laughing with you while we smoked outside.

Snatches of your life told to me in illicit puffing.

This shared habit having us hide out back in the rain.

You reminded me of my grandad, 

of an older Ireland and men

in crisp white shirts with dirty collars.

A few pints after work and a way of telling,

the saddest stories that made them a comedy.

I brought you books to keep you occupied,

while you watched the door.

Playing with your incredulity by replacing

murder mystery with modern philosophy.

Delighted to have you give them back, 

read and pronounced bullshit.

Gruff and unyielding in old fashioned prejudices,

there was a kindness to you

that made them harmless.

An unobtrusive goodness,

that the world is worse for losing.

Poem: Estranged

There was a time when we would lie

Wrapped in each other, knowing every dream,

Secrecy meaningless because I could taste your thoughts.

You found the small broken places that could not be mended,

Patched them closely with silver threads of desire and love -

Because I let you touch me the world was better. 

Often we did not need words, my favored medium,

You read me silently with your fingertips and told me to myself

With the flutter of eyelashes against my neck.

If I tensed a muscle in my cheek you saw a memory

That you could wash away with a kiss to my wrist

And one slow delicious roll of your body against mine.

Had we been able to lock the doors and shut ourselves in

I think we would have spent forever breathing each other,

Happily sustained by bright silent desire.

The world intruded of course and we lost sight of us,

One small lie and suddenly your shoulders were strangers -

A slow white blink of your eye I could not decipher.

Now I see you and it is as if I never mapped your history

In the smooth of your back and jutting sharpness of your hip,

You have crows feet that I am not allowed to taste.

I have forgotten how to read your body as I used to,

A cold handshake tells me nothing of the years that have passed,

Your perfunctory brush of lips on my cheek is incoherent. 

Suicide Awareness Day

Tomorrow, 10  September, is national suicide awareness day and I'd like to talk about losing my friend to suicide.

When she died we were initially told that there had been a tragic accident. We knew she had been spending Christmas abroad with her family and set to googling to try and work out what had happened. We found a news article about a car accident where there had been one fatality, the age was wrong but we thought that might be a mistake and guessed that this was how she had died.

As the days passed the story became more confused. We discovered that she had passed away at home, and that she had died on New Years Eve. Even then, knowing her as we did we never imagined that she had taken her own life. 

 She had seemed so happy, when we heard what had actually happened the shock was immense. 

I didn't believe it. I thought a mistake had been made, that she had hurt herself accidentally or that someone else had harmed her. Even when there was no question anymore I could not accept it. How was it that my beautiful friend had been so desperate and none of us had seen any warning signs. How was it that she could have died, alone in such sadness when there were so many people, just minutes away, who loved her so much.

As weeks passed I would imagine her in that moment. What she was feeling, how she negotiated the moment between living and deciding not to live anymore. How she did it. Why she did it. I crafted a horrible image where she changed her mind only when it was too late to turn back. Imagined her trying to stay awake, to reach for her phone as it buzzed with New Years text messages so that she could be saved, only to find that she was too weak now to move. I imagined her crying, realizing that it was too late, understanding that she was going to die alone, frightened and sorry. I imagined she despaired at the end, that life seemed worthwhile again in her last moments. 

I hope that she just went to sleep believing she had found some peace.

We didn't talk about it. We always used that original story and talked about a tragic accident. I had the word suicide stuck in my throat, terrified I was going to scream it out for want of some truth. I felt like I was part of an elaborate lie, everyone knowing but nobody speaking. 

Months after she died a group of us sat together in a pub and she was mentioned. For the first time somebody said suicide and the conversation changed. We honed in on it, now that it had been verbalized. The conversation we had was filled with so much anger that it hurts me now to think of it. For a moment we were united in hating her for it. All of our hurt and confusion twisted into complete rage, what she had done to her family, what she had done to us.

I am not angry now, our anger in that moment can be understood. Now I just feel very sad that she is not here anymore. The reason she is not here matters less than it did. It was important for us to be able to talk about it, to make it real and lay it down, to accept it and move away from the way she died to a more honest grief.

Sometimes I think, what if I had called her on the phone. If it had been at exactly the right moment would something I said have changed that night, stilled her hand until the moment had passed and she wouldn't have died. She would still be here. But we cannot rewrite the past, we cannot bring her back with wishes and regret. 

Now, I find myself watching. I see a small sadness in a friend and feel a horrible sinking terror that they are hiding a bigger despair. I worry because I missed it in her. I fear getting another telephone call to say that someone else I love felt so lost in the world that they thought it better to leave it. Selfishly, I'm terrified that I will have to deal with it again, that I will have to relearn every moment I spent with them to the tune of their dying. 

If there was any magic in the world I would use it to bring her back, or if that was to big I would use it instead to be with her again for a moment. Not to ask her why, not now, but rather to wrap her in a hug and make sure she knew that I loved her. While everything else has been boxed up and put away safely it is the thought of her dying without that knowledge that hurts now. 

I do not know that there is anything we could have done to help her. There is no way to work out why she took her life. What I do know is that the pain of losing someone to suicide is a singular hurt, all mixed up with anger and confusion and regret. Talking about it is difficult, people do not know how to react, often there is a sense of shame. 

I don't know if awareness will help people in despair, or if our being more aware could have saved her; but I do know that awareness helps the people who are left behind. Being able to say, 'this is what happened to my friend, this is how she died' allows us to process it. 

Many people have stories like this to tell, or stories they do not feel able to give voice. The importance of awareness cannot be underestimated, nor can the importance of reaching out, talking and listening to the things people might not be saying. 

This week is world suicide prevention week. Tell someone your story.