Suicide Notes

by Michael Thomas Ford

How come someone always saves the people who try to kill themselves and then makes them tell everyone how sorry they are for ruining their evenings? I keep feeling like everyone wants me to apologize for something. But I’m not going to. I don’t have anything to apologize for. They’re the ones who screwed everything up. Not me. I didn’t ask to be saved.

And just because your life isn’t as awful as someone else’s, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. You can’t compare how you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn’t work. What might look like the perfect life—or even an okay life—to you might not be so okay for the person living it.

Why is it okay to put someone to death, but it’s not okay for those people to do it themselves? I’ll tell you what I think. I think it pisses people off when you kill yourself because it takes away their chance to control your life, even a little bit. They don’t like it when you end things the way you want to and don’t wait for the way it’s “supposed” to happen. What if suicide is the way it’s supposed to happen? Do they ever think of that?

I thought that that’s exactly how most people are. They move their mouths, but nothing important comes out. They just talk and talk and talk.

If I forget about the pain, I might also forget that it was a really stupid idea to do it in the first place.

Personally, I think they killed the bear because they were afraid of it. That’s what people do, kill the things they’re afraid of.

No one ever tells you that when your heart breaks, you can feel it. But you can. It feels like something has crumbled inside you and the pieces are falling into your stomach. It hurts more than any punch ever could. You stop breathing, and for a while you can’t remember how. When you finally do, it feels like your throat has closed up, like you’re trying to suck air through a straw.

It’s sort of perfect, when you think about it. Isn’t falling in love a lot like losing your head?