Young Writers Society

Thanks for your comments Audy! <3

@hexglass thank you so much for your comments! I so admire your own poetry, so I really appreciate it!

@killeham thank you!! thank you!! Thanks for all those comments and encouragement!

<3 Thank you @TheBlueCat & @Cadi!

author's note - I realize that suicidal tendencies are a lot more complex than this poem addresses. And I don't think it's generally useful to blame other people (or blame yourself) when someone takes their own life - so I'm hoping this poem isn't interpreted as blaming anyone or making light of a serious issue. I had a close friend attempt suicide in the last couple years, and it is terrifying and heartbreaking and the worst feeling I know. My heart absolutely goes out to you if you've dealt with this, and wish there was something more I could say. -- alliyah



i keep thinking about the woman who jumped off the bridge the morning after easter. and imagining the water cold as ice and the bridge looking over the housetops of my small town where I was still asleep and her fear. and trying to understand.
_____ but i can't.
and i don't know what it means.
or how someone could hurt so much that they'd jump off a bridge the day after easter, without a note. and i don't even know this woman, but i saw a picture of her in the paper and i started sobbing.
_____ i don't even know her. but i see the tired crinkles under her eyes and her soft smile and hair that curls a little too far to the left like my mother's, and i can't stop crying. and if i had been there, i would have said anything to stop her from jumping.
_____don't jump! please, you matter. you matter i can say that without knowing you. and i have no idea what your pain is or your heart ache nor the roads you have traveled and traveled. and i cannot say it will get better. but you are a part of this universe we both inhabit like one star in the night sky making the world a little brighter. and i would notice if you left it. you matter, you matter, your life matters to me.
_____i keep thinking about the woman who jumped off a bridge the morning after easter. i was still asleep in my bed, and if i had shouted out into the void that i was in pain, that i was hurt, if i had said i didn't want to live anymore, someone would have answered. my mother or my sister or maybe even my horrible cat. would have wiped my tears and told me i was loved.
_____and i can't
know how it must feel to shout into the world and not have a voice return to you, saying that you matter. and i don't know how it feels to be so scared or tired or beaten down by the world that you don't even dare to shout.
_____but i hope
that the people who i find by my side know that i would answer them if they shouted to the world. that if they stood on a bridge and threatened to jump that i would shout and hold their head to my chest and cry with them just to imagine their star removed from the night sky.

and today. i heard they found her body. divers turned coroners searched all week, and carried her from the river that had taken her away. with a special reverence for this life now gone, cradling her body like a mother holding her lost child.
_____and i know i am not the only one who cannot stop thinking even now, about the woman who jumped off the bridge to end her life. and i am not the only one who rages against the river and the bridge that we could preserve only her life-less body this time.
_____ but i can only give my own words. so i give them to you.
you matter. you matter. you matter. your star is brighter than you could see yourself and your life important. if you ever stand on the bridge, i only ask you to wake me, so that i might say it again. you matter.