Look To The Living, Love Them, And

Others Would Say To Me, 'it Is Only Temporary, It Will Pass, You Will Get Over It,' But Of Course They Had No Idea How I Felt, Although They Were Certain That They Did. Over And Over And Over I Would Say To Myself, If I Can't Feel, If I Can't Move, If I Can't Think, And I Can't Care, Then What Conceivable Point Is There In Living?

Which Of My Feelings Are Real? Which Of The Me's Is Me? The Wild, Impulsive, Chaotic, Energetic, And Crazy One? Or The Shy, Withdrawn, Desperate, Suicidal, Doomed, And Tired One? Probably A Bit Of Both, Hopefully Much That Is Neither.

Never Once, During Any Of My Bouts Of Depression, Had I Been Inclined Or Able To Pick Up A Telephone And Ask A Friend For Help. It Wasn't In Me.

Conditions Of Thought, Memory, And Desire, Persuaded By Impulse And Irrationality, Are Influenced As Well By Personal Aesthetics And Private Meanings.

Each Way To Suicide Is Its Own: Intensely Private, Unknowable, And Terrible. Suicide Will Have Seemed To Its Perpetrator The Last And Best Of Bad Possibilities, And Any Attempt By The Living To Chart This Final Terrain Of Life Can Be Only A Sketch, Maddeningly Incomplete