Suicide isn’t salvation,
It takes the pain to another body
That same pain you want to run away from
Like a lion after it’s prey
When you can pray and pray
That same pain you think you can’t bear
Despite all the bottles of beer and intoxications
Suicide isn’t the cure to starvation
It takes it to another body
The power of communication can penetrate the thickest darkness
Even if it’s like the dim light my phone produces when the light goes off
Or even if it’s as bright as the moonlight at night
The word “I’m here” can shatter the ice around a trapped heart
Even if it’s from a stranger
Or even from a loved one
Some days you forget to wipe off your troubles from your eyes and see
See life in a different perspective
Honestly… I’m pretty sure no one gets life,
It’s a disaster and a pleasure
The sophisticated art of alchemy
Trying to create your own life

Where there’s breath, there’s Hope
And you’re breathing

Were you there when I died?

Where you there?
Fountains flowing with pain and sorrow my tears watered my bed
Intoxicated with my thoughts, eyes blood red

Were you there?
When father said I amount to nothing good , I’m good for nothing

Were you there?
Heartbreaks like day breaks, the sun never rise on my feelings

Where you there when I died?
If you no get money make you hide but i never had anyone to hide behind

Mother crying, mates laughing, father shouting, friends drifting, brothers neglecting ,,, me drowning

Were you there? That doesn’t matter because you’re here as I die…
Yes the world’s so beautiful , it has taken my breath away…

To whom it may concern

I was bitter.
Coined into deep ponds,
No wishes, no fairys.
Auguring, the only hope that came.
Black thoughts?
Or white mocks,
Green phobias
Of fainted pink velvet of folded dreams.
Words, do i have to say
But silence the only creepy answer that came.
My conscious cloned Identity became afraid of its own shadows
Death said “Hell”o the other day
No fellow said “Hi” days ago.
So i hoped on holding unto the ropes
While I’m been eloped with spirits and nice scented flowers.

© Nonso “Zãnoni” Nzewi

FourMan

Mind wandering, Heart racing

He seeks to find meaning to what others hold so dear

He ponders with a bleeding heart…

Heart bled out…now empty

An empty heart….a soulless vessel, lacking its essence

He tries to pick up the pieces of his soul and mind…broken

Fights tears as he struggles to pickup the fragments

He cries for help…

“I’m tired”

“I feel worthless”

They hear but do not listen

They talk but do not speak

The sound of silence echoes

The walls feel like they are caving in… they cave in

He looks down the bridge, the river in a chaotic wavy frenzy…it’s a long way down

He closes his eyes, terrified beyond belief…but he is also tired beyond belief

With tears cascading down his cheeks…he leaps

The wind brushes past his ears, the choppy waters getting louder….

Takes his last breath…everything goes dark….a splash

A life lost….a battle lost

His phone beeps…a text message…his mother,

“I LOVE YOU SON, CALL ME BACK”.

Up and down like the running host of the friendly but unfriendly shower of the seasonal land

This is a storyline I find to be bitter but sweet to those who never new what I had to undergo just to look fly

Insecurity was something I have become pals with never having a settling mind to call peace of my

I have found myself on a journey I think I will never return from

if they were at all a place of peace from where I am to where I am heading, let the drums beat and echo the name of a trouble soul

let there be a welcoming for a lost and troubled soul.

• Emmanuel Osunde

SUICIDE

Dear Sue;

I have been trying for the past few days to put a nail to head as to why you chose to have a handshake with death. You see, Sue, I want to be on your side but I wish it didn't have to be by suicide. I know, I know you're gone and the deed has been done but if you ever were to be reborn ...you should know that right now, right now I'm pissed at you.

Sue, you know I’m always going to be on your side but how could you decide that you could reside beside the devil and leave me here alone , leave me here…missing you.

I stare at space and i see memories of our time together swing past like they were hung on some pendulum. Memories of your smile still hangs on a frame in the corridor of my mind, my throat is held tight by tge fingers of pain….your pain.

I remember how much you cherished life and how you were literally full of life. That’s why it pains me so much that i couldn’t notice the dark streaks of anguish hidden in the picture perfect persona you were. I’m sorry that i couldn’t perceive the stench of depression looming.

I picked up my pen to tell you how angered i was that you left me alone but strolling down the lines, i can’t help but say i’m sorry i was insensitive to your pain. Sue, your side is where i always want to be, but not this way… Not by suicide.

Yours always,
Olive.

JAMB HEIGHT

In sixteen years I should be done with school, serve in the seventeenth year, get a job in the eighteenth year, buy a house in the nineteenth year, get married in the twentieth year and become a millionaire in the twenty-sixth year… This was my dream… My dream to be an accountant.
So I began chasing this dream recklessly until I was involved in an accident… Yes! I was JAMBed, hospitalized, depressed, motivated, re-energised and on the road again but again the same accident…

All the dreams and aspirations become dim lit as the pop-up on the computer screen says “No admission given yet”. Dreams I used to chase have grown wings and now chase me causing nightmares that gives insomnia.
I will burn candles, sleep less trying to manoeuvre this accident, maybe if I look left and right, read what’s left and write the rest because these dreams are locked up in the exam body, I stopped chasing dreams and started chasing scores, years of uninteresting activities that don’t contribute to creativity… Little why its called THE EXAMINATION BOARD(bored)

So more years down the line, I’ve realized that the road cannot be crossed by me, hope lost, heart bent, head bowed, soul choked, paper stained from the blood seeping out of my wrist as I write, I tried the easy way out, an act only a crime when attempted and not when committed…

So mother I write facing this computer expecting another accident, I am sorry I could not fulfil the promises I made when I finished secondary school, I am sorry for the tears you’d cry when I am gone
I am sorry for my smiling face in your mind when you mourn
I am sorry for times you’d wish it’s all a dream
I am sorry for times when you’d in your prayers scream
I am sorry for the nine months, I wish I was still birth

I will say more but this book is drenched in blood and I feel dizzy
I am still checking but it says ‘server busy’
Now the page is loading but its like the clouds are fading and my breath is fainting.
The screen just popped up… “You have been given provisional admission into……”

My life is a movie set

My life is a book

I have got plenty tales to tell

My placard of “say no to suicide”

Was the boldest

My voice ringing the loudest

In the just concluded campaign against suicide.

But don’t judge me when you see this
For I was tired of living a lie
And fighting an unending war with unseen demons
Please when you want to tell my tales
Don’t spice it to your taste

Poison was too expensive
I didn’t know how to tie a rope well
And jumping off third mainland bridge
Might draw too many attention

I have always been good with hiding my feelings
That’s why you never saw my cuts
Actually I cut my soul bit by bit
Tearing all my insides apart till there was nothing left of me

Mama would cry
Daddy would ask where he did wrong in my care
Maybe you and you and the other youss who knew me might tell tales of my sweetness

I wish I would be here to see the care you would give me when I am gone
Using adjective like she was a
“Beautiful, amazing, smart, intelligent, etc” woman

I really wished you had tried to see my lie
When I said I was fine
And I seemed to always shine

I wished you gave me all the energy and time
You use now to broadcast my death
When I was slowly letting go

I wished I was strong enough to fight this demons alone
I wished I was strong enough to end the constant wars in my head
I wished I really cried
Cried out the pains when the hurt was more than I could bear

I know death might not be the doorway
But when you see I finally thrust the knife
1.5cm to the left of my breastbone
Please know that I really tried
To turn this truth into a lie

I tried

But fear made me be silent

I tried

But fear made me lose my voice

I tried

But these demons won’t let me be

And I realized too late

when the concoctions that would have led me to hell burned my throat

That my insides had long committed suicide

And left this body to keep living a lie

I realized too late

That I was closer to death
But not as close as I would have preferred.

Maybe I had thought my body to be strong for too long

It fought death

So I could tell tales

To the world

How I tried
to show them I was strong

Why did I even bother
Like a child always seeking attention

But I realized too late

When the nurses kept whispering about a fine girl that is me

tried to end it all, a life she couldn’t make

That I was given a chance I never wanted

To try

And maybe turn this truth into a lie.

His head was soft but life was the opposite to him.
Every little drop of tears
was a big picture of himself.
He sat at the edge of a long building looking down at the fast moving cars.
Atleast I’m gonna jump off
the cliff and get rid of
the endless drama in my
head,he said looking downward.
I can tell his future looks
dark,probably ’cause his lights went out.
He’s trying to get to the
highest level of depression
so he could fall off and die,
his ribs were nothing but an
empty cage and a black hole In his chest.
“The devil played his music
and i kept that symphony on repeat,i walked through fire and felt nothing, i took the step you are about to take now but right now I
wish I never did it,there’s more to life than suicide”
.He turned around to check who was behind but found no one.
Sudden relief,”I will be fine”,he said.
He stood up
and walk his way home with a new life.

Danced to the rhythm of death hapilly.
Having found comfort in suicide thoughts.
To all been said on letting go life and facing the consequence.
Suicide as an escape for depressed soul and weak-mind humans.
Suicide as an escape to shame.
With suicide as a way to avoid defeat or failure.
Well,we all say NO to suicide,until life hits us so hard.
The YES comes out silently until it becomes a picture of a ceiling fan with rope to the neck of a young man.
The YES comes out silently until it becomes a view of blood pouring non-stop from a stomach pierced with a shape knife..

Well,all said and done.
suicide is not an option
Don’t do it.

_OMOJOLA FEMI

Suicide
Climbing a pole
Letting go
Letting loose
Falling in a hole
Giving up

A fall off the wall
In the big shopping mall
A splatter on the floor
The sun sets

A soul is lost
A brethren is gone
Only a few care
Flowers on the gravestone

Oh! What is the need of the flowers?
After he is gone
After the sun has set
And the moon has risen

This tiny rope
That little poison
The minute bullet
The fall off mankind
The journey out of earth
To a land unknown

A psychopath!
Psychologists would say
A lunatic!
Psychiatrists would say

But, whether medically proven that
He was mentally sick or not
It wasn’t his desire
As tears can be seen on his face
And afterwards, a bitter smile.

An unfulfilled life
Shortly lived
Painfully taken
I think he is resting now
Exploits, he can do no more
Lives, he can touch no more
He has taken away that cute smile
From his loved ones
And all that he left are pains and regrets,
Teary eyes and sad faces.

An unprepared journey
He began;
With depression as the driver
Therapists; definitely
Can’t get the wind of this.