To Speak Of It, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

To never speak
Of the dark and strife
To never discuss why
They’d take their own life

Is to suppress
The the illness they had
To ignore the warning signs
Many others have

Plath, Sexton, Cobain
Williams, and Carradine
Gloss them over
You obscure the unseen

Often I hear,
“There’s more to their life
Than that of their death
But what of the motives

Of why they took their last breath?
There are millions more, not of note
Who become remote, retreat into hiding
On an isolated, desperate, lonely sinking boat

I know I have been there
More than I care to count
It was because I heard their stories
That I am still around

It is not to glamorize
Or or to grimly sensationalize
But to speak of it openly
Is something to normalize

It is to have those open eyes
To see the pain in other’s lives
To intervene, while there’s still time
Give them the compassion of your dime
(end)

I think it is wrong to never write poetry about suicide, and I have been down that dark road myself a few times in my life. I don’t think suicide should be glamorized, but I do write about it in the context that the people I write about I didn’t want them to die.

I think you should write about suicide. Poetry is about life, and not just the pretty side of life. Life isn’t always about flowers and puppies. To ignore the bad parts of life is to not be prepared for them. To not discuss the bad side of life is to lack the skills to prevent those bad things.

I am 5 years sober, and this is one of my favorite anonymous quotes about suicide, ” Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

I have written nearly 300 poems in the past 5 years, and over 1000 in 30 years. If at any one of those dark thoughts, I had been successful, the majority of my work would not exist.

I write about Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath and suicide in general to bring awareness to the issue so people don’t ignore it. Yes, there is more to their lives than their deaths. But the subject isn’t just about famous people, it is an issue that effects families of all classes, all races all over the world. You don’t save lives by never talking about it.