She thought about the club she was joining
while she cut her wrists—used
the three fingers not pinching the
blade
to open her laptop, to read
one final online collections list.
Poets, musicians, writers, and
athletes, congressmen, generals;
also actors, activists, porn stars,
one mythic Pohnpeian who
slingshot'd off his genitals,
and an unlisted consortium
of only-in-deaths (who were
second-string citizens, sidelined kids,
bullied teens and barely-liveds,
blood-brighting corners we secretly
knew about
but tried to ignore for their
sadness)
convinced into self-hate or
drug-fed into run-away rolls, jailed
by debt or cornered into no-way
walls where there's only one “freedom”
to
take hold of. “What will yours be?”
she asked herself. “Will I self-stop
my illness (too many pills, and rest)
or my fear (a quick syringe in the
neck,
some cleaner off the shelf)?
Do it for my values (just stop
consuming,
fade) or for some service (share my
life
insurance, calm those shaking heads
with this tin-strip blade).” Thinking
this far, her hand shook {oooh, darl-},
Imagining she might wait a while. “Not
yet.”
And God, this taboo is unromantic –
curdles and bullet caves, meat clumps
and
vomit graves. Messy pops and twitching
foam and slow drains away.
She started reading Cobain's note
(“That care!
Such waste...”), and Phoebe's memorial
page
(“Kids still bullied her, after she
was dead?”)
and Nearing's memoir (“lived four
times my age,
before he left...”), and felt a blend
of awe and rage.
Now she needed all ten fingers, and
started searching in a spurt
for words off that list: Ariel,
Nylon, empathy, pacifist,
Arbus portraits...
a mindless toe slid
over the razor,
caught on the carpet, “Shhhit! that hurts.”
[some notable suicides:]
ReplyDeleteMark Antony (30 BC), Roman politician and general, by sword (Octavian, now close to absolute power, did not intend to give them rest. In August 30 BC, assisted by Agrippa, he invaded Egypt. With no other refuge to escape to, Antony committed suicide by stabbing himself with his sword in the mistaken belief that Cleopatra had already done so. When he found out that Cleopatra was still alive, his friends brought him to Cleopatra's monument in which she was hiding, and he died in her arms)
Isokelekel (1500's) name, in Pohnpeian, means "shining noble," "wonderful king," was a semi-mythical hero warrior from Kosrae who conquered the Saudeleur Dynasty of Pohnpei, an island in the modern Federated States of Micronesia, sometime between the early 16th century and early 17th century. He is considered the father of modern Pohnpei. At Peikapw, a place of prayer, Isokelekel saw his reflection in a pool of water and, realizing his old age, decided to commit suicide. According to one legend, he tied his penis to the top of a young palm tree. Letting go of the bent tree, his penis was torn off, and Isokelekel bled to death.
Clodius Albinus (197), Roman emperor, killed himself after a defeat in battle.
Korechika Anami, Japanese War Minister (1945), seppuku (His suicide note read: "I—with my death—humbly apologize to the Emperor for the great crime." )
Robert FitzRoy (1865), English meteorologist, surveyor and hydrographer, who captained the HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage. Slit throat with razor. (In 1863 FitzRoy was promoted to Vice-Admiral due to seniority, but in the coming years internal and external troubles at the Meteorological Office, financial concerns as well as failing health, and his struggle with depression took their toll. On 30 April 1865, Vice-Admiral FitzRoy committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. FitzRoy died having exhausted his entire fortune (£6,000, the equivalent of £400,000 today) on public expenditure. When this came to light, in order to prevent his wife and daughter living in destitution, his friend and colleague Bartholomew Sulivan began an Admiral FitzRoy Testimonial Fund, which succeeded in getting the government to pay back £3,000 of this sum (Darwin contributed a further £100). Queen Victoria gave the special favour of allowing his widow and daughter the use of grace and favour apartments at Hampton Court Palace, until her death.)
DeleteWallace Carothers (1937), American inventor of nylon, cyanide poisoning (On January 8, 1937, Carothers' sister Isobel died of pneumonia. Wallace and Helen Carothers traveled to Chicago to attend her funeral and then to Des Moines for her burial. He still traveled to Philadelphia to visit his psychiatrist, Dr. Appel, who told a friend of Carothers that he thought suicide was the likely outcome of Carothers' case. On April 28, 1937, Carothers went to the Experimental Station to work. The following day he committed suicide in a hotel room in Philadelphia by taking cyanide dissolved in lemon juice, knowing that the ingestion of cyanide in an acidic solution would greatly intensify the speed and effect of the poison. No note was found)
Sylvia Plath (1963), American poet, novelist, children's author; committed suicide by gassing herself in her kitchen. (Beginning in October 1962, Plath experienced a great burst of creativity and wrote most of the poems on which her reputation now rests, writing at least 26 of the poems of her posthumous collection Ariel during the final months of her life. In December 1962, she returned alone to London with their children, and rented, on a five-year lease, a flat at 23 Fitzroy Road … The northern winter of 1962–3 was one of the coldest in 100 years; the pipes froze, the children—now two years old and nine months—were often sick, and the house had no telephone. Her depression returned but she completed the rest of her poetry collection which would be published after her death … Dr. John Horder, a close friend who lived near Plath, prescribed her antidepressants a few days before her death. Knowing she was at risk alone with two young children, he says he visited her daily and made strenuous efforts to have her admitted to a hospital; when that failed, he arranged for a live-in nurse. … Plath's American doctor had warned her never again to take the antidepressant drug which she found worsened her depression but Dr. Horder had prescribed it under a proprietary name which she did not recognize.
The nurse was due to arrive at nine o'clock the morning of 11 February 1963 to help Plath with the care of her children. Upon arrival, she could not get into the flat, but eventually gained access with the help of a workman, Charles Langridge. They found Plath dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in the kitchen, with her head in the oven, having sealed the rooms between herself and her sleeping children with wet towels and cloths.At approximately 4:30 am, Plath had placed her head in the oven, with the gas turned on. She was 30 years old. … in her biography Giving Up: The Last Days of Sylvia Plath, Plath's best friend, Jillian Becker wrote, "According to Mr. Goodchild, a police officer attached to the coroner's office ... [Plath] had thrust her head far into the gas oven... [and] had really meant to die.")
Diane Arbus (1971), American photographer, overdosed on pills and slashed wrists (Arbus experienced "depressive episodes" during her life similar to those experienced by her mother, and the episodes may have been made worse by symptoms of hepatitis. Arbus wrote in 1968, "I go up and down a lot", and her ex-husband noted that she had "violent changes of mood." On July 26, 1971, while living at Westbeth Artists Community in New York City, Arbus took her own life by ingesting barbiturates and slashing her wrists with a razor. Marvin Israel found her body in the bathtub two days later; she was 48 years old)
DeleteScott Nearing (1983), American political activist and conservationist, by self-starvation at 100 years of age (During his 1919 trial for allegedly obstructing American military recruitment during World War I, at which he testified in his own defense, the prosecution asked Nearing whether he was a "pacifist socialist." Nearing's reply was illuminating—he replied that he was a "pacifist" and left it at that. Prosecutor Earl B. Barnes was taken aback and asked for clarification: Q: You are a pacifist even to class struggles? [Nearing]: I am a pacifist in that I believe that no man has a right to do violence to any other man. Q: Even in the class struggle? [Nearing]: Under no circumstances.
Half a century later, writing in his 1972 autobiography, The Making of a Radical, Nearing described himself as a pacifist, a socialist, and a vegetarian. In his autobiography he says "I became a vegetarian because I was persuaded that life is as valid for other creatures as it is for humans. I do not need dead animal bodies to keep me alive, strong and healthy. Therefore, I will not kill for food." … Nearing died on August 24, 1983, eighteen days after his 100th birthday. His death was described as a conscious leaving of life brought about by fasting in Helen Nearing's memoir.)
Bruno Bettelheim (1990). Austrian-born U.S. psychologist and writer; self-asphyxiated with plastic bag over head. (At the end of his life Bettelheim suffered from depression. He appeared to have had difficulties with depression for much of his life. In 1990, widowed, in failing physical health, and suffering from the effects of a stroke which impaired his mental abilities and paralyzed part of his body, he committed suicide)
Kurt Cobain (1994), American rock singer (Nirvana), shotgun wound to the head. (Cobain had agreed to undergo a detox program. Cobain arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California on March 30, 1994. … When visited by friends, there was no indication to them that Cobain was in any negative or suicidal state of mind. He spent the day talking to counselors about his drug abuse and personal problems, happily playing with his daughter Frances. These interactions were the last time Cobain saw his daughter. The following night, Cobain walked outside to have a cigarette, and climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility (which he had joked earlier in the day would be a stupid feat to attempt). He took a taxi to Los Angeles Airport and flew back to Seattle. On the flight, he sat next to Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses. Despite Cobain's own personal animosity towards Guns N' Roses and specifically Axl Rose, Cobain "seemed happy" to see McKagan … Most of his close friends and family were unaware of his whereabouts. On April 2 and 3, 1994, Cobain was spotted in numerous locations around Seattle. … On April 8, 1994, Cobain's body was discovered at his Lake Washington Blvd home by an electrician named Gary Smith who had arrived to install a security system. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain's ear, the electrician reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep until he saw the shotgun pointing at his chin. A note was found, addressed to Cobain's childhood imaginary friend "Boddah", that stated that Cobain had not "felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing . . . for too many years now". A high concentration of heroin and traces of diazepam were also found in his body.
DeleteFrom the note: “I've had a much better appreciation for all the people I've known personally, and as fans of our music, but I still can't get over the frustration, the guilt and empathy I have for everyone. There's good in all of us and I think I simply love people too much, so much that it makes me feel too fucking sad. … I have it good, very good, and I'm grateful, but since the age of seven, I've become hateful towards all humans in general. Only because it seems so easy for people to get along that have empathy. Empathy! Only because I love and feel sorry for people too much I guess.”)
David Foster Wallace (2008), American author; hanging (Wallace hanged himself on September 12, 2008, at age 46. Wallace's father reported in an interview that his son had suffered from depression for more than 20 years and that antidepressant medication had allowed him to be productive. When he experienced severe side effects from the medication, he attempted to wean himself from his primary antidepressant, phenelzine. On his doctor's advice, Wallace stopped taking the medication in June 2007, and the depression returned. Wallace received other treatments, including electroconvulsive therapy. When he returned to phenelzine, he found that it had lost its effectiveness. Earlier in the year, Wallace had checked into a nearby motel and taken all the pills he could obtain, ending up in a local hospital. His wife kept a watchful eye on him in the following days, but on September 12, Wallace went into the garage, wrote a two-page note, and arranged part of the manuscript for The Pale King before binding his wrists and hanging himself from a patio rafter. [Quotes from Infinite Jest describing clinical depression: “A level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it” “a double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible” “a nausea of the cells and soul”])
Phoebe Prince (2010), American high school student who committed suicide due to school bullying and cyberbullying, hanging. (On January 14, 2010, three of the accused allegedly engaged in persistent taunting and harassment of Prince at school, in the library and school auditorium. One of the accused allegedly followed Prince home from school in a friend's car, threw an empty can at her, and yelled an insult. It was after this final incident that Prince committed suicide by hanging herself in the stairwell leading to the second floor of the family apartment. Her body was discovered by her 12-year-old sister. After her death, many crude comments about her were posted on her Facebook memorial page, most of which were removed.)
DeleteSmiley Culture (2011), English reggae singer and DJ, stabbed himself during police raid. (On 15 March 2011, Emmanuel died, from a self-inflicted stab wound, while the police were searching his house in Hillbury Road, Warlingham, Surrey. His death came an hour and a half after officers arrived with a search warrant relating to the import of Class A drugs into the UK. A post-mortem examination revealed that he had died from a single stab wound to the heart. He is survived by his mother, son, daughter, sister and three brothers )
This poem was a shocking, painful experience to read through. It stood out for its contrast of society’s grotesquely romanticized vision of suicide with the unpleasant, grisly images of real suicide attempts. The list of celebrities who committed suicide, described as a “club”, embodies the way in which society and the media commercializes the stereotype of the depressed artist, turning it into another commodity for sensationalist headline-obsessed media. (Just look at how society immortalized Kurt Cobain. Some assholes tried to sell his suicide note on a t-shirt!) Society’s ignorance only creates a self-perpetuating cycle, in which one generation’s self-destructive artists inspire imitation in those who aspire to such greatness. You can see this in the poem through the girl’s obsession with famous suicides, as she tries to find solidarity and a shared perverse glory in their self-martyrdom. All these romanticized illusions contrast with the multitude of untold suicides ignored by society. The “second-string citizens, sidelined kids, bullied teens and barely-liveds” are the real victims, of both suicide and society’s continuing blindness. I volunteer at a crisis helpline where we often receive suicidal callers. This list of people perfectly captures the population that uses our line, the invisible members of our society for whom suicide is a reality. They are the second-string citizens, neglected and fed lies. The world needs more honest and unromantic portrayals of suicide, like in this poem, if it ever wishes to see change.
ReplyDeleteWell-read, well-thought, eloquently phrased, and meaningfully personal. Thank you - glad I got this one right, in your eyes.
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