you can only cry out for attention in so many ways;
compose something coherent and pained organized properly behind labels --
"cw suicide" "cw suicidal ideation" "cw death" "cw negative"
"cw self harm" "cw disordered eating" "cw parents"
folded neatly inside a little box, opt-in
and therein lies the decision game you've created, between you and
folks, friends, and voyeurs you know;
Door A: nobody opens the box, not able to properly
deal with the subject matter, too many scars and wounds of their own that
cannot handle your bullshit. completely justifiable and yet
you know you're alone, ignored, nobody knows and nobody can care
about what's in the closed box -- the cat is dead.
Door B: your sweet caring friends
open the door and read, and they message you full of
love and concern and terror and worry,
and now you have to live with the guilt and the fake-smiles "i'm fine sorry"
all of the sorries you lie through your teeth,
because you can't burden them and now you're drowning
in guilt over your head, because
you can't be that person that gets talked off the ledge
every other day.
(even if you need to be.)

so then you think, option C -
you say nothing and close everything and take a bus
to a station to a town to a river nearby
that you tossed rocks in as a child back when you had a little optimism left
and you jump, and nobody ever hears from you again --
another internet ghost, another abandoned blog
another empty website and closed Discord account;
problem - you think about how panicked everyone will be, how they'll
scramble to find any sort of info, any hint
any missing poster or mysterious disappearance true-crime video for the
hungry masses desperate to consume a vanished caracass,
trying to find any leads or truth
and you feel guilt in your throat, you can't be
that much of a burden even in your death,
where everyone will have thrice the work to do to get closure.

therefore, option D -
write a script of a backup plan of a contingency
plan of a main plan; before you
jump you text someone a key to a rube goldberg machine that
when the marble starts rolling, it delivers the mail:
your suicide note, last will and testament, all of the post-mortem sorries
and hugs and kisses, passwords, your e-life
tell 'em not to bother with a funeral.
because time heals all wounds, and it doesn't matter that much-
they'll forget about you if you give 'em a year
maybe two.
but wait! you think of your darling lover's
tearful reaction, the amount of spam calls to a phone that
will never pick up again, the
wild grief and pain you've lived through that
never quite goes away, haunts you more than any real ghost does.
and you can't die with that guilt.

so now your hands are tied: you have
no options, people-pleaser you are desperate to be nothing:
no burden, no footprint, no oxygen and sound
and it's so difficult to stay alive but both your life
and your death cause problems, so what's left to do?
you look into the mirror every day
and see her ghost haunting you and you can't be like that, you feel sick in your throat;
you remember talking her down from the ledge every day
your life monitored by a series of ticking third-hands and
mobile game updates
measured time backwards and carefully ordered words.
you can't put that curse on anyone else, so you
pretend you're fine and put your problems in a tighter box
but selfishly, you wish you could be the problem, be someone
constantly talked down, because the gods know you need it
and the shame makes you want to take that bus to anywhere else even worse.

your anger means nothing; you're playing the role of someone who
has his shit together, under control
as if your life isn't actually marked by a series of 4s and 3s
wondering who thinks you're attention seeking out of nowhere today,
because you bluff that your good days don't look like
a 4 defined in 12-pt Times New Roman font:
"You can't do things the way you usually do them due to your mental health. Impulsive and compulsive thoughts may be hard to cope with."

so you keep struggling through Purgatory:
nothing changes, but
you want to believe the rope people keep throwing you,
and you want to make him proud.
but god, you're so fucking tired of being strong.
and you wonder when you get to put down the weight of the sky, Atlas
even if it crushes the earth to dust beneath your feet.
you are only a man, no titan.

god,
i want to see my brother again.