Vacant Chair

You are the wick of a candle, finally burning out and resting in wax pools
Your daydreams consist of chandeliers‚ hanging from the ceiling in your school
You are convinced that no one will care that your seat’s vacant‚ or bother to
ask «why»
You will be two missed calls and an apologetic voicemail on the day you die
Your father doesn’t call you on your birthday because you stopped making him
proud
There’s something about your mental diagnosis that made him stop reaching out
This rope is made of woven words that hurt you‚ and leave you in a haze
The gallows are the loved ones that have told you «this is just a phase»
As your lungs deplete of oxygen you will tell yourself «this is a mistake»
You will beg the ones that care for you to hold you up and take the rope away
Listen-
This is your community. No communion or holy words spoken through cracked lips
can stop your family’s weeping if you do this
You are like water spilled from our hands — dribbling a little at a time into
the crevices in which your mother planted all of your favorite flowers
You were dying, just like those perennials, and every night of self harm was a
petal dropping down‚ quiet upon impact but resounding with a warning almost no
one could understand
Suicide is a language for which there is no translation — forgive us and give
us patience as we fumble through sentences with you, grasping for clarity
You mother will grasp for it for years if her greatest creation destroys itself.
She will sit in your bedroom and search memories for times she could’ve seen
those petals falling
There are parts of you spilled out across the world already. Do not spill your
soul onto these walls, because there are millions of better times and places
for expiration than this
Tell us what you need. We are clasping our fingers together in an effort to
retain what is left of you. We will sit for hours and talk of solutions or sit
silent with you in a room‚ pondering the weight of simply being ALIVE
You will consider this as a final expression for as long as you exist — but
just because you learned a new word doesn’t mean you have to use it.
We will invent new languages together without blood or dissension.
It will take years be fully established
Do not let your place go vacant. Do not let that heart go silent.
There is a single petal that hasn’t fallen yet, and we will be damned if it is
not the most vibrant
Is it too late for me to get help
I want out of this
It’s not too late for me to get help
I’ll get out of this
Take the rope away