Passing Thoughts

For just a fleeting moment death insists a passing thought.

A bullet to the head. A rope on a tree. A leap from a cliff.

Sometimes it’s not even a thought, just a feeling and a picture.

An insatiable need that you feel in your chest,

telling you that something ought to be done.

Something should change, and you can change it.

The picture of blood running down your forearms and pooling on the floor.

The same blood that beats in your heart,

so heavy as you relish the scared thought of ending it all.

It’s terrifying. Not something you want in any sense. But you need it.

Oh how you need it more than anything. Some masochistic release.

Some search for something better that doesn’t exist.

A place to go that no road leads to.

The path you walk now doesn’t go anywhere really, now does it?

Why does one feel this way?

How could these sorts of thoughts come to fruition?

An intense dissatisfaction with life perhaps.

An insurmountable stress that just can’t be avoided.

Maybe even something as simple as an inflammation in the brain.

That or some other helplessness. Not because one has simply lived too long.

Nobody would try to kill themselves just to end a life that has gone on too long.

Life is much too short for that.

Just imagine that. Having lived a good life,

and just simply being at peace and deciding that it’s time to go.

But who the hell has that much time?

The thought of time is an easy way to bring someone back to reality.

Staring at that dull ceiling has just gotten even more boring.

Tracing the all too familiar shapes of the ceiling finish,

the shapes visible because of the luminescent moonlight

and occasional headlight creeping its way through the blinds.

It may be easier to sleep if my eyes were closed,

but after hours of trying that,

this new more interesting tactic seemed worth a try.

Though maybe contemplating death isn’t the best idea for provoking a sleep that doesn’t last forever.

And with that…

Lights out.