Steven Willis – Instead of a Suicide Note, I Wrote This [Video]

By Button Poetry

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Steven Willis, performing for #theoneactseries.

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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

0:04
– It’s not true what they say
0:10
when they romanticize suicide.
0:17
And they tell you that those of us who are brave enough
0:20
to take our own lives will leave you notes.
0:29
Our bodies be the note.
0:35
A message in sick calligraphy written in the lines
0:38
of our wrists and throats all saying the same thing.
0:45
I was brave enough to do it this time
0:51
For those of us who are brave enough to take our own lives
0:55
or at least have come close knows the courage to just
1:00
fucking end it comes as an impulse.
1:05
An impulse to be pulse-less.
1:08
An adrenaline rush of all the audacity it takes
1:11
to play the fates in your own Greek tragedy.
1:14
I mean sure, the how is premeditated.
1:18
Oh, that’s been mulled over for months in daydreams
1:21
and night terrors teetering on the line of the fantasy.
1:25
Some sadistic obsession of all the ways
1:28
that it could happen.
1:30
And I know, I know you all think the thing that keeps us
1:33
from offing ourselves are your just hang in there cat memes
1:37
and you can do it but really it’s the fear.
1:44
Waking up.
1:47
Of getting the dosage wrong.
1:53
Nobody ever survives a suicide,
1:55
you just gain a suicide attempt.
1:59
With tallies that I keep on the slits of my wrist
2:01
and look, I don’t want to live with that okay.
2:03
Shit, I don’t want to live!
2:12
You know I think the myth of the suicide note was something
2:15
made by the living.
2:17
Yeah, something to absolve themselves at the guilt
2:22
of not being there or not doing more.
2:24
Like here it is, why I did it written in a letter
2:28
in a tight little bow
2:30
almost as tight as the rope around my neck.
2:33
It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s bullshit.
2:37
Since when have you known the suicidal to have such egos?
2:40
It’s rich men who leave wills.
2:43
It’s terrorists who leave manifestos.
2:45
It’s activists who live and eat those.
2:47
All of which you the living we’ll argue over.
2:51
But us the brave, we the suicidal,
2:56
we leave you nothing but this body.
2:58
We know it’s not about what you leave behind,
3:02
but what you leave with.
3:04
That’s why we leave with the shakes.
3:05
That’s why we leave blue in the face.
3:07
That’s why we leave challenging the ceiling fan
3:11
with one last chance to swing.
3:13
We leave with one last jump to conclusions.
3:16
We leave over oxygenated.
3:19
We leave over-medicated.
3:21
We leave, we leave, we leave with a bang.
3:24
We leave with one last chance to say
3:31
I was brave enough to do it this time.

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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