Category: The Trauma Letters Online Anthology

(c) Margarita CSilva (unsplash images)

Suicide Notes     (possible t/w)
There are days when all I want
Is to get out of my body
And stand outside of me in silent 
OBSERVATION 
of this tragically beautiful, 
broken being that is myself 
And yet,
Like a stay of execution;

The weight of hope weighs down on my soul
and stays my hand.
Hope steers my head clear off thoughts
On how peaceful, eternal silence would be.
My free spirit strains at the chains 
this world binds her up with-
I feel my free spirit choke on a pain
much more intense than the agonies 
borne by a woman in labour.

My skin
Is another oppressor 
in this playbook:
She holds me by the scruff of the neck
And pulls me back into helplessness.
I look around into the faces of many
that I, time and again, stood behind.

They watch me from the corners of eyes,
Mock pitying but condemning my soul
into eternal damnation.
I send a strongly veiled:
'Hello, how are you?'
in hopes someone would read between the lines
But no;
Nobody really cares.
I turn to the last strains of happiness
Floating around in my beserk mind.
They are worth nothing but straw 
in this swiftly churning current
that sucks and carries without;
Everything that stood once proud, 
beautiful, unbroken and full of life

But then I ask my mind to hold still
Just for a moment
Tell my body to fight back
For I am a mountain
Strong and immovable
And when tomorrow comes
Here I will stand
Whole and unbroken again.

Possibilities

Maybe, just maybe:
I’m chasing fleetingly after the wind
And when it rushes out of my sails
I’ll come crashing to reality.

Maybe,
This castle I build in the air would not crumble
And then I can live an enchanted fairy-tale with her
Only, it may so suddenly end.

Maybe, just maybe,
Dreaming big will finally have paid off
And I’d be able to stop sighing
Because then, I would have found you.

Maybe,
It’s all a mix up in my head
From the knocks I got for being a bad boy
From the long-gone moments of my childhood.

Maybe, just maybe,
You are not meant for me
But trust me;
It’s you I see when I close my eyes-
This vision makes me drowsy
every single moment I’m awake.

Maybe,
We are meant to play different roles
And by luck,
our paths crossed at this point in time
But is there no way to reverse the fates?
To choose only one path, and make it ours?

Maybe, just maybe,
There’s a lot more left unsaid
Of heartbeats fading like bright colours
under the sun.
This could be real and yet untrue:

Maybe, 
I deserve a punch 
to knock me out of this intoxication
Because maybe, now I'm lost; 
Searching for a needle in the haystack.


Bio: Daniel Asamoah Yeboah is a Ghanaian poet, educator, novelist, spoken word artiste, University of Cape Coast alum and former president of the Creative Writers Club, UCC. He has contributed to several zines and journals. He is a volunteer, nature lover and reader. He says poetry is a gift that when not given back to society, haunts its creator, the poet, that births it perhaps for the power it wields in changing the ways of men.