NEW POEM: Today

World Mental Health Day (10th October 2022) is always an important day. A day for raising awareness of the broad ranging concerns around mental health, a day to learn how to support those who struggle / live with mental health problems, as well as a day to remember those we have lost in their fight. Here is my contribution to the day.

---

Today

A Poem by Simon Clark

(Written to coincide with World Mental Health Day, 10th October 2022)

I didn’t kill myself today,

I didn’t leap from the platform and under the train,

I didn’t feel the cold steel track as the wheels ended the pain,

I didn’t do that today.

I didn’t kill myself today,

I didn’t empty out the pills and swallow them down,

I didn’t numb all the hurt, dampen or diminish the clown,

I didn’t do that today.

I didn’t kill myself today,

I didn’t step from the pavement and face the lorry,

I didn’t get dragged down by those thoughts or need to say sorry,

I didn’t do that today.

I didn’t kill myself today,

I didn’t feel overwhelmed by self-loathing or shame,

I didn’t draw the knife across my flesh to punish or blame,

I didn’t do that today.

I didn’t kill myself today,

I didn’t run to the man for a needle of death,

I didn’t let my family see my last icy cold breath,

I didn’t do that today.

I didn’t kill myself today,

I didn’t listen to the voice that cries in my mind,

I didn’t do it with them in mind because ache makes me blind,

I didn’t do that today.

I didn’t kill myself today,

I didn’t plan to leave this Earth with questions or scars,

I cannot promise tomorrow that I won’t dance with the stars,

I cannot do that today.

But…I didn’t kill myself today.

© Simon Clark 2022