Because I Could Not Stop For Death

Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the School, where Children strove
At recess in the ring
We passed the fields of gazing grain
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us
The dews drew quivering and chill
For only Gossamer, my gown
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the GROUND
The roof was scarcely visible
The cornice in the ground.

Since then 'tis centuries and yet
Feels shorter than the DAY
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.


by Emily Dickinson

The mountains are calling, and I must go.

a poem for the broken hearted.

This is a poem for the broken hearted.

For the abandon.

For heavy eyelids,

and led boots.

This is a poem for those who wonder

if they'll ever be able to shake the thought of their ex-lover.

But pray they never do.

This is a poem for those who's hearts have been broken so much,

that it only pumps sawdust into your veins.

For the constantly hazy eyed,

constantly drunk,

constantly stomach punched

constantly hurt.

Constantly changing the songs on your ipod

because every single one reminds you of her.

Because she has branded a hole the shape of herself into your soul.

Left you so fucking broken,

even God looks at you and shrugs his shoulders.

Somedays, you will wish your snooze button was a noose.

Somedays, you the only thought more unbearable

than the ones about her,

are the ones where your mother is watching your bloody shirt

tumble in the dryer.

And somedays, youre worried even that thought won't keep you alive.

But listen,

you are not a human sacrifice.

I am not a human sacrifice.

I will no longer bleed in your name.

I will no longer drive past your fucking house,

and I will no longer look for you every time I go to a coffee shop.

And I will no longer look at red ford focuses

hoping you're behind the steering wheel.

You're never behind the steering wheel.

I will no longer cry after I have an orgasm.

I will no longer imagine that the girls I fuck are you.

I will no longer fuck girls.

See, I'm 24 years old and I still think love

is in the front drawer of a one night stand.

Every morning for me is empty,

dwelling in a place where the sun never rises.

Because some days, I still think you were the one who put the sun there

in the first place.

This is a poem for the broken hearted.

I know that time is your friend now,

and it seems like she even broke the hands on your clock,

but the crow bar she jambed up underneath your ribcage,

will rattle loose again.

And that shit hurts even when it's coming back out.

And every time someone says to me “it gets better”

I kinda want to punch them in the throat,

but it gets better.

Eventually,

after a while.

At least that's what I keep telling myself.

by Erica

http://ericaisabird.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-poem-for-broken-hearted.html

Some Sad Facts About Suicide

1. The word “suicide” comes from two Latin roots, sui (“of oneself”) and cidium (“killing” or “slaying”).ⁱ
2. People have committed suicide in an endless variety of ways, including swallowing poisonous spiders, power-drilling holes in their heads, sticking hot pokers down their throats, choking on underwear, injecting peanut butter into their veins, crushing their necks in vices, and hurling themselves into vats of beer.^b
3. In China, someone takes his or her own life on average every two minutes. China accounts for nearly a quarter of the global total of suicides with between 250,000 and 300,000 suicides a year.^b
4. Among famous figures who committed suicide: Sigmund Freud, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Hannibal, Nero, Virginia Wolf, Adolf Hitler, Ernest Hemmingway, Sylvia Plath, Vincent van Gogh, Jack London, Dylan Thomas, Judy Garland, Rudolph Hess, Pontius Pilate, Socrates, and possibly Tchaikovsky, Elvis Presley, and Marilyn Monroe.ⁱ
5. It is more likely someone will die from suicide than from homicide. For every two people killed by homicide, three people die of suicide.^b

The suicide rate in the United States has been climbing steadily since 1999

6. In America, someone attempts suicide once every minute, and someone completes a suicide once every 17 minutes. Throughout the world, approximately 2,000 people kill themselves each day.^b
7. Suicide is the 8^th leading cause of death in the United States.^b
8. The most common types of suicide include copycat, euthanasia, familicide, forced, honor, Internet, martyrdom, ritual, attack, and cop suicides.^b
9. The acne medication isotretinoin (Acutane) has been linked to a possible increase risk of suicide. The FDA requires Acutane to include a label warning that the product may be linked to suicide, depression, and psychosis.^b
10. The spring months of March, April, and May have consistently shown to have the highest suicide rate, 4-6% higher than the average for the rest of the year. Christmas season is actually below average. Some studies suggest greater seasonality in suicides in rural rather than urban areas.^g
11. When her husband Caecina Paetus hesitated to kill himself honorably, his wife Arria (d. A.D. 42) snatched the dagger from her husband, stabbed herself, and handed the weapon back with the words “Paete, non dolet“ (“Paeuts, it does not hurt”).ⁱ
12. French philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) perhaps best explains the divergent views philosophers and theologians hold concerning suicide when he said, “What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.”^e
13. David Carradine, famous for his roles in the 1970s series Kung Fu and the Kill Bill movie trilogy, was found hanging in a hotel closet with a yellow nylon rope around his neck and a black rope around his genitals. Family members deny it was a suicide.^a
14. Autoerotic asphyxiation, also know as sexual hanging, is a type of abnormal sexual behavior in which a person (usually a young male) tries to restrict the flow of oxygen to the brain (usually with a rope around the neck) while masturbating to enhance the sexual experience. The practice arose out of the observation that men executed by hanging often got an erection and sometimes ejaculated. The practice is mentioned in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.^b
15. A college student committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live Web cam while some users egged him on. There are also several pro-Internet sites that give detailed information on the most effective ways to commit suicide.^c

Older adults have the highest suicide rates, more than 50% higher than young people

16. While there is a common perception that suicide rates are highest among the young, the elderly, in fact, have the highest suicide rates.^e
17. Some studies suggest a correlation between a sport team’s performance and fans’ suicide rates.^f
18. Sylvia Plath’s (1932-1963) novel The Bell Jar, about a gifted young woman’s mental breakdown, mirrors Plath’s own breakdown and is considered to be one of the best-told tales of a woman’s descent into insanity. It was published only weeks before Plath killed herself.^g
19. One of the first defenses of suicide written in English was John Donne’s (1572-1631) unorthodox Biathanos (1609). In his work, Donne proposed that suicide is not incompatible with the laws of God, reason, and nature. Other writers such as Voltaire (1694-1778) and Hume (1711-1776) also attacked suicide taboos and led the way to abandoning legal punishments of suicide attempters.ⁱ
20. Many cultures have prohibited a normal burial for people who committed suicide, although the restrictions varied according to time and place. A common practice in England until 1823 was to bury a suicidal person at night in a crossroad with a stake driven through the heart. In France, the suicide’s body was dragged through the streets and then hanged from the public gallows. In Prussia, early laws required the victim to be buried under the gallows.^j
21. One in seven Canadians has seriously considered suicide, and more than 3,500 Canadians kill themselves each year. Canada’s suicide rate (currently 12.3 per 100,000) is consistently higher than the United States' rate (currently 11.2).^b
22. Over the last decade, the suicide rate among young children has increased dramatically. In 2002, suicide was the sixth leading cause of death of five- to 14-year olds and the third leading cause of death in preteens. Suicidologists are alarmed that children as young as age two are also increasingly attempting suicide.^b
23. Five to 10% of suicides take place in mental hospitals.^e
24. There is some evidence that suicide attempts during the first week of the menstrual cycle may be associated with low levels of estrogen.^g

American troops are committing suicide in the largest numbers since records began in the 1980s

25. During 2008, 140 American soldiers committed suicide, breaking all previous suicide records in the military. In the first four months of 2009, 91 soldiers committed suicide. If this rate continues throughout 2009, by the end of the year more than 270 soldiers will have killed themselves, leading some scholars to claim there is a suicide epidemic in the military.^h
26. Caucasians tend to have higher suicide rates than African Americans.^b
27. In ancient times, sometimes groups of people would commit suicide rather than be taken prisoner or tortured by their captors. For example, in AD 473, 960 Jews died in what appears to have been a mass murder/suicide on top of Masada rather than be enslaved by the Romans. Only two women and five children escaped this death.ⁱ
28. On November 18, 1978, the dynamic leader of a religious group called the People’s Temple ordered his followers to drink cyanide-laced juice. In all, 913 people died, including nearly 300 children. The leader, Jim Jones (1931-1978), shot himself in the head.^f
29. In India, a Hindu wife was expected to throw herself on her husband’s burning body on the funeral pyre so she could enter the next life with him. The practice (called suttee) was abolished in 1829 by British India, though isolated cases of it have occurred into the twenty-first century. The term derived from the goddess Sati, and the term sati is now sometimes used to describe a chaste woman.^b
30. In Japanese culture, seppuku (“stomach cutting”) was a ritual suicide performed by warriors (usually Samurai) about to get captured. During the ritual, the warrior would slice up his abdomen and stretch out his neck, and then one of his comrades would behead him with one stroke. While the practice was banned in the seventeenth century, it has persisted to this day.^b
31. Only seven instances of suicide are reported in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament. Old Testament suicides include Samson, Saul, Saul’s armor bearer, Ahitophel, Zimri, Razis, and Abimelech. In the New Testament, Judas Iscariot is the only recorded suicide.^b
32. Hegesias (320-280 B.C.) was known as the “Death Persuader” or the “Advocate of Death” and belonged to a minor school of Greek philosophy named Cyrenaics which advocated an early version of hedonism. Hegasias' lectures prompted so many listeners to commit suicide that he was forbidden to speak.ⁱ
33. Aceldama (“field of blood”), where Judas killed himself near Jerusalem, became a pauper’s burial ground after priests bought it with the 30 pieces of silver flung at their feet by Judas.^b
34. Though the Bible doesn’t specifically prohibit suicide and there is no particular word for the act itself, Christianity general condemns the practice as initially stated by St. Augustine. He was concerned with the decimation of Christians by suicide and condemned those who committed suicide just so they could gain immediate entrance into heaven. He successfully supplanted the Roman ideal of heroic individualism with a Platonic concept of submission to divine authority. In A.D. 563, the Council of Braga officially condemned suicide.ⁱ
35. The Qu’ran explicitly forbids suicide as the gravest sin, more serious even than homicide. Muslims believe that each individual has his or her kismet or destiny, which is preordained by God and must not be defied. But killing oneself as an act of jihad (holy war) is not considered a suicide.^b
36. In the Mayan culture, hanging was the only method of suicide deemed appropriate and anyone who committed suicide this way was guaranteed a place in the afterlife. They even had a goddess of the noose and the gallows named Ixtab (“Rope Woman”).^b

Hanging is the leading method of suicide around the world and is particularly popular in rural areas

37. Hanging is the leading method of suicide worldwide.^b
38. Although women attempt suicide about three times more often than men, men complete suicide about three times more often than women.^f
39. Four out of five people who commit suicide have attempted to kill themselves at least once previously.^f
40. Suicide is the leading cause of death for people with schizophrenia.^f
41. A number of suicidologists have criticized news coverage of suicides, citing that reading about suicide victims in the news often triggers copycat or “contagion” suicides.^f
42. During the Middle Ages, suicide was often equated with murder and even diabolical possession in various parts of Europe. Three common penalties existed: confiscation of property, degradation of corpse, and refusal of burial in consecrated grounds. These views persisted throughout the eighteenth century.^j
43. Although Nero (A.D. 37-68) insisted he wanted to commit suicide honorably, he actually had himself killed by an attendant. During his lifetime, he had caused several suicides, including that of his teacher Seneca, the poet Lucan, and Petroniu, who is thought to be the author of Satyricon. These were all compulsory suicides in lieu of execution.ⁱ
44. Levels of a brain transmitter called serotonin is considered a possible predictor of suicide. Some researchers found that people with low levels of serotonin are six to 10 more times likely to commit suicide than are people with normal levels.^f
45. Suicide rates tend to reflect economic conditions. In the United States, for example, suicide rates declined during the prosperous years after WWI and WWII, but rose during the Great Depression. Ironically, suicide rates tend to decrease during times of war.^b
46. Oregon and Washington are the only states that specifically allow physician-assisted suicide under certain strict guidelines. A few of these guidelines include being diagnosed with a terminal illness that will lead to death in six months, making two oral requests and one written request for assistance separated by 15 days, and persuading two physicians that the patient is sincere and is not influenced by depression.^b
47. Beliefs about suicide varied in ancient Greece. The Stoics and Epicureans, for example, considered that one’s destiny was a personal choice. Cato, Pliny, and Seneca all thought the choice of suicide was acceptable. On the other hand, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Ovid, and Cicero opposed suicide.ⁱ
48. Some scholars suggest that there are national preferences for modes of suicide. For example, the Russians prefer hanging, the English and Irish prefer poison, the Italians prefer firearms, and the Americans prefer firearms, poisons, and gas. Proclivities for certain methods tend to travel with immigrants wherever they go.^g
49. In Rome, razors, scalpels, and daggers were more common methods of suicide than hanging (which was seen as unclean and shameful), jumping, and poisoning or other drugs. Less often, but not rarely, the Romans starved themselves to death by refusing to eat or set themselves on fire (immolation).ⁱ
50. Martin Luther, Puritan religious leaders, and philosophers such as John Locke, Rousseau, and Kierkegaard were adamantly opposed to suicide.i
51. In America, the most common suicide method for both men and women is firearms, accounting for 60% of all suicides. For women, the next most common method is ingesting solid and liquid poison or pills. The next most common method for men is hanging/strangling/suffocation.^f
52. Though there is need to practice caution in the comparison of religion and suicide, studies suggest that in the United States, Catholics appear to have suicide rates higher than Jews but lower than Protestants. Generally speaking, higher suicide rates are found among the multi-denominational, loosely federated Protestants.^b
53. Several U.S. state and national studies suggest that suicide attempts among gay, lesbian, and bisexual high school students are higher than their heterosexual peers.^b

Abuse in early childhood may change the genetic structure of the brain, leading to a greater susceptibility to suicide

54. Experts believe that early exposure to child abuse may disrupt the proper development of communication pathways within the brain and, consequently, abuse victims are more likely than their peers to commit suicide.^f
55. There is increasing evidence that individuals with a family history of suicide are more vulnerable to becoming victims of suicide themselves.^b
56. While some studies seem to suggest a link between the use of Prozac and suicide rates, the makers of Prozac minimize a correlation.^b
57. No suicides have been reported in the several small South Sea Islands and the Hindu Kush Mountains of India. Countries that rank unusually high include Hungry, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan. Countries on the low end include Philippines, Angola, Jamaica, Mexico, the Bahamas, Kuwait, Jordan, Kenya, and Egypt.^b
58. New and less stringent attitudes toward suicide emerged during the Renaissance as churchly taboos began to lose their power. For example, Shakespeare’s tragedies typically present suicide in sympathetic terms, as seen in the suicides of Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Romeo, Juliet, Brutus, Antony, and Cleopatra. Sixteenth-century essayist Michel de Montaigne argues that the right to die was a personal choice, and Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) justified suicide as a form of euthanasia in his Utopia.ⁱ
59. A provocative 1982 book titled Suicide, mode d’emploi is both a how-to manual and a political manifesto encouraging readers to exercise their right to die. It contains information about those prescription drugs that ensure a “gentle death” along with how to calculate a lethal dose.^e
60. Famous literary suicides include Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (Madame Bovary), Victor Hugo’s Inspector Javert (Les Miserable), Goethe’s Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther), Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise (Thelma and Louise), and Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (Anna Karenina).^b
61. Most European countries formally decriminalized suicide in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although it remained a crime in England and Wales until 1961 and in Ireland until 1993.ⁱ
62. Kamikaze (“divine wind”) pilots are an example of an altruistic suicide. More than 2,000 young Japanese died in this manner. The number of ships they sank is a matter of debate, with figures as low as 34 and as high as 70.^g
63. Attempted suicide was once considered a felony in Kentucky.^b
64. The first suicide note is thought to have been written by an Egyptian four thousand years ago. In his poems, he describes the pain of his existence and the attractions of death.^b
65. Russian poet Sergei Esenin (1895-1925) wrote an entire poem in his own blood that served as suicide note.^e
66. In a study of genuine suicide notes versus simulated ones, the genuine notes are much more specific about giving directives concerning property distribution and insurance policies and more concerned with the pain and suffering of others. They are more likely to express psychological pain and more likely to use “love” in their texts. The simulated notes give greater details about the motives of suicide, mention the act of suicide itself, and more often use euphemistic phrases for death and suicide.^e

Signs urging counseling are posted at the Golden Gate Bridge, the most popular place in the world to commit suicide

67. Popular suicide locations include San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, Japan’s Aokigahara Forest (“sea of trees” or “suicide forest”), and England’s Beachy Head. In all these places there are posted signs urging potential victims to seek help.^g
68. The jump from the Golden Gate Bridge is 250 feet. Trauma from the jump is dramatic and can cause ripped blood vessels, demolished central nervous systems, and a transected spinal cord. While a few have died from drowning and one from a shark attack, most die from the impact of the body on the water. Only 1% who jump survive.^g
69. The Eskimo, Norse, Samoan, and Crow Indian cultures accepted and encouraged “altruistic” suicide among the elderly and sick.^f
70. Roman gladiators would sometimes thrust wooden sticks or spears down their throats or force their heads into the spokes of moving carts so that they could choose their own time of death rather than another person’s imposed time and way of dying.ⁱ
71. September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day.^b
72. The top predictors for suicide are diagnosable mental condition, co-morbid substance abuse, loss of social support, and access to a firearm.^e
73. Children of parents who commit suicide are a higher risk to committee suicide later in life.^e
74. The first suicide recorded in the Bible was Abimelech, who lived in the twelfth century B.C. He was the son of Giddeon (Jerubbaal) and a concubine, and he attempted to kill his 70 half-brothers so he could be king. In his final battle, a woman dropped a millstone on his head, and he ordered his sword bearer to kill him so it wouldn’t be said he was killed by a woman.^b
75. Thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate cult killed themselves in March 1997 in a mansion near San Diego. The victims were between 18 and 24 years old, drank a lethal mixture of Phenobarbital and vodka, and died over a three-day period. They believed their spirits would rendezvous with a UFO behind Comet Hale-Bopp.^e
76. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) writes about the Wood of the Suicides in Canto XIII of his The Divine Comedy. He writes that Minos sends a suicide victim’s soul to the Seventh Circle of Hell (below heretics and murders) where it falls into the ground, grows into a sapling, and then into a tree. Harpies feed on the tree, causing it great pain. After Judgment Day, the suicide victim’s soul will hang from the thorns of trees.^b

Divorce usually leads more men than women to suicide

77. Divorced people are three times as likely to commit suicide as people who are married. Moreover, children of divorce are at a higher risk for committing suicide when they grow up. Divorced and separated men are two and a half times more likely to commit suicide than married men. Divorce, however, doesn’t seem to lead more women to commit suicide.^f
78. Though studies remain inconclusive, among the professional disciplines, doctors are twice as likely to kill themselves as the general population. And female physicians are more likely than their male counterparts. Some scholars have identified psychiatry, anesthesiology, and ophthalmology as specialties at greater risk for suicide, with pediatrics having the least risk.^b
79. Druids or priests of the Celtic people believed that those who killed themselves to accompany their dead friends will live with them in the after life.^b
80. Prolonged exposure to extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields such as those emitted by large power lines may double the risk of suicide. Researchers suggest that electromagnetic fields may reduce the production of melatonin, a hormone that maintains daily circadian rhythms, which are also associated with depression.^b
81. The last time someone jumped off the Empire State Building was in 2000, but there have been more than 30 suicides at the 1,250 foot skyscraper since it opened in 1941. Most people who jump never made it the street, but landed on one of the building’s setbacks.^g
82. The suicide rate for Alaskan Native Indians is twice that of the U.S. population, and in western Alaska, the Eskimo suicide rates are even higher. The most common method used is hanging.^g
83. Fiji Indians have the world’s highest female suicide rates. A major cause of the rise of suicides has been the erosion of social structures and values. Additionally, early Fiji Islanders forced the many wives of a tribal chieftain to kill themselves when he died. The women would actually compete to be the first to die, believing the first would become the chieftain’s favorite wife in the afterworld.^f
84. The odds that potentially suicidal adolescents will kill themselves double when a gun is kept in the home.^b
85. In the United States, Nevada consistently leads suicide rate statistics, with Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming variously falling within the top ten. Highest regional rates are generally those of the Rocky Mountain and West Coast areas, with the South showing the lowest rate, except for Florida.^b
86. Since the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937, more than 1,200 people have jumped to their deaths, making it the number one spot in the world for suicides.^b
87. Abel Griffiths was the last person who committed suicide in England to be dragged through the streets of London and buried at a crossroads. He was a 22-year-old law student and was buried in only his drawers, socks, and a sheet in June 1823. The usual tradition of driving a stake through the corpse was omitted. Crossroads represented the sign of the cross and the steady traffic over the grave was believed to help keep the person’s ghost down. Also, ancient sacrificial victims had been slain at crossroads.^b
88. In the movie Soylent Green (1973) starring Charlton Heston, people in an overcrowded world are encouraged to enter special suicide centers. The corpses are later processed into Soylent Green wafers as food for the overpopulated world.^b
89. The first scientific study of suicide was Le Suicide written by French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917).^e
90. The M*A*S*H theme song is titled “Suicide is Painless” and contains the lyrics “. . . cause suicide is painless/It brings on many changes/And I can take it or leave it if I please.”^b

Most insurance policies include a suicide provision, given that the suicide took place two years after the policy issue date

91. The usual modern life insurance policy will pay for death by suicide provided that the death occurs two years or more after the initiation of the policy.^b
92. Between 10% and 35% of people who commit suicide leave behind a note.^e
93. Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. A.D. 55-120) reports on the ancient practice of pinning down the body of suicide victims in bogs. The practice predates Christianity among Germanic tribes and was done to prevent the spirits of the dead from haunting or harming the living.^b
94. Monday appears to be the day on which most suicides occur. Saturday sees the fewest.^e
95. Some experts believe that 25% of drivers who die in auto accidents cause them subconsciously. “Autocides” are suicides disguised as automobile accidents.^b
96. Nearly 10% of fatal police shootings in the United States are a result of “suicide by cop.”^b
97. Many more suicides are linked to psychiatric illness than to serious medical disorders such as Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis, or cancer.^e
98. Many Jews imprisoned at Treblinka, one of the most notorious World War II Nazi concentration camps, chose to kill themselves as an affirmation of the freedom to control their own destiny.^d
99. One suicide victim who committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge left behind a note saying: “I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.”^e

-- Posted July 15, 2009

References
^a Duke, Alan. “Carradine’s Body to Return Home, While Questions Remain.” CNN.com. June 5, 2009. Accessed: June 23, 2009.
^b Evans, Glen, et. al. 2003. The Encyclopedia of Suicide. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Facts on File, Inc.
^c “Florida Teen Broadcasts Suicide on the Internet.” New York Post. November 21, 2008. Accessed: June 23, 2009.
^d Goeschel, Christian. 2009. Suicide in Nazi Germany. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
^e Jamison, Kay Redfield. 1999. Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
^f Joiner, Thomas. 2005. Why People Die by Suicide. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
^g Lieberman, Lisa. 2003. Leaving You: The Cultural Meaning of Suicide. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee Publisher.
^h “Military Suicide Rate.” ChicagoTribune.com. May 29, 2009. Accessed: June 23, 2009.
ⁱ Minois, Georges. 1999. History of Suicide: Voluntary Death in Western Culture. Trans. Lydia G. Cochrane. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press.
^j Murray, Alexander. 2000. Suicide in the Middle Ages: The Curse on Self-Murder. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

from http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/07/15_suicide.html

What I Have Lost

I lost my mother to a gun
Ever since then I’ve been on the run


On Mother’s Day I cannot phone
She’s not here I’m all alone


After she was killed I heard her voice
She said, “I’m sorry I left, but I had no choice.”


The man who killed her never did time
It never cost him one thin dime



by Betty Phillips

Cynthia Leigh Waters

Child

Yearns

Never-never Land

Touches

Hurt

Instant Love

All Mine

Loving and Lovable

Emotional

Intricate

God’s Child

Hard Life

Wondrous

Admirable

Trusting

Eclectic

Romantic

Sunny

You were my joy and my life,

My everything, my all

You were an answer to prayer

I loved you so much

I had to give you away

You weren’t a toy

I would have broken you

You were my sunshine

After you were gone

I lived in perpetual darkness.

I became an underground animal

Never seeking the sun

You are my sun

by Betty Phillips

What I Have Lost

I know through the years

There were good times and bad

Unfortunately what hurts

I remember the bad

I’ve disappointed you

In so many ways

The drinking, the drugging

Almost forgetting your special day

I know you’ve lost trust

Today is a new day

I’m sobering up

While missing you the same

The days are getting better

I’m recalling the good days

I know that this year

I’ll remember your special day

by Jill Smith

Paw Prints from Heaven

Though you can't see me, I am always around...
Though you can't hear me, I am speaking to you...
Though you can't touch me, I am reaching for you...
The images you see, but cannot explain...
The energy you feel, but cannot see...
The love that you feel, when thinking of me...
My presence you feel, when walking outside...
My hugs remembered, never let go...
My heart that I gave you, that you now wear...
The things you are seeing, that no one can explain...
And the things that you hear, with no one around...
These gifts that I give you, are my Paw Prints from Heaven.

- Romeo

Grieving a Soulmate: The Love Story Behind "Till Death Do Us Part"

"Grieving a Soulmate" is unlike any book you've ever read, even though the story is universal. It's about the death of a lover. This book takes on a difficult and very personal topic with courage, out-of-the-box thinking, and deep love. Ranging from the practical to the emotional - and frequently blending the two - Orfali's style of writing makes a difficult topic easier to manage. He writes in an easy style that is analytical, yet speaks from the heart. The content is thought-provoking, unique and original. It's your gentle and informed guide to the deep grieving that accompanies the death of a soulmate.

This book should help you quickly overcome the red-hot pain of grief. It also tells you how to reconstruct your life, find meaning, and deal with the big existential issues from a secular perspective. It's a survival guide for the last stages in a soulmate relationship. Above all, however, "Grieving a Soulmate" is a love story.

"Grieving a Soulmate" by Robert Orfali is available in paperback and e-book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, and others.

ISBN-13: 978-1936400669
Paperback list price: $14.95
E-book list price: $ 6.99
Book's website: GrievingaSoulmate

Bio: Robert Orfali and his soulmate of thirty years, Jeri, were both in the computer software field in the early days of Silicon Valley. They co-authored three best-selling software books and went together on several world tours to promote their technology. Jeri was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, in 1999, shortly after they moved to Hawaii. Jeri and Robert spent the next 10 years fighting Jeri's cancer and learning how to live with it. Jeri even learned how to surf during her chemo years. She went from "Silicon Valley Executive Woman of the Year" to "Waikiki Surfer Chick." Jeri received one of the most moving surfer funerals ever. Her ashes are in the ocean at Waikiki.

Trailer by Vickie of VickiesBusinessServicesdotcom

Echoes of the Heart

There are echoes I hear, old songs in the dark
of the Indian ways, of long ago days,
still heard all around, in our valley below...
Where their dreams of tomorrow, are still sung by the lark....
 
As the twilight would come, under a red setting sun,
with the fragrance of loam, and the tired walk done... 
they would bed under trees where the heather was strewn
they would burn a small fire, and prepare a warm meal,
with smoke in the breeze, while the whippoorwill's song
would, drift by the face of the moon

On their heels was the dust, in the noontime sun
They journeyed from tribes from the dusk of the past, 
wearing the colorful hope of tomorrow's new task 
Moving to where the buffalo roam
Then moving again, to find a new home

There are echoes I hear, old songs in the dark
of the Indian ways, of long ago days,
still heard all around, in our valley below...
Where their dreams of tomorrow, are still sung by the lark....

by Carrie Richards 

There Is A God

fast train from ne033x on Vimeo.

This poem may not rhyme,
It may not say what a poem should;
And the only reason I'm writing it
Is because a friend asked if I woukld.
So many things have been said and done
In this life of mine:
Some good to be embraced -
Most better left behind.
But, the truth is, And I'll say this but once;
Life is truly beautiful
If we just give it a chance!

Right now, my heart is broken,
Laying, crushed on the floor;
There's no reason for me to carry on -
What reason is there for?
I know where I've been -
I know where I am;
You can't imagine the pain
That I must muster just to stand.
Yet, stand I do,
And speak, I must;
For a message to share -
In what I've come to trust...

My heart has been broken
More times than you know;
By life, by man,
By even my ego.
I've spent two years
In a loneliness you can't imagine;
Unless you've been in solitary confinement
In a man made prison.
I've lost me soul mate
Just weeks before we were wed -
Do you know what it's like to really lose,
"I'm sorry, Danny, she's dead."
I've lost my children,
Everyone sees me as a thug;
When they were my hope -
My reason for getting off drugs...

Right now,
Even as I speak these words;
I don't ask for sympathy -
Just maybe that one person heard.
My love is gone -
Once again I feel pain;
Yet I stand tall and proud -
Faith in something beyond this rain...

There is a God!
I've felt Him here with me;
It's what carries me on
When I should have broke free.
There is a God -
I wish I could show you the way!
You'd break free right now
 And escape your yesterday!

My dreams keep me going -
Right here and right now,
A brighter tomorrow -
Of this, I vow.

I love you, Dara,
And I understand you had to move on;
For Blaze and everything good -
Beyond what we knew was wrong.

by ne033x aka Danny Watson

A World of Lost Minds

The morning sun had set
now the night would beget
the sparkling stars that shine
speaking to this heart of mine

Where art thou Lord of dreams
I watch the ethereal streams of
haunted souls go by bringing 
tears to my eyes for all of their
needs

 For I am not content until I get
consent to enter the depths of
discernment to learn the measure
of your design so that you may
define my deeds

The systems of the world are meeting
manic minds  scheming  to  lay waste
causing hell in haste,  as the  liars who
live in lairs , can't get away from the
truths they fear, minds now lost

At what cost, the ignorant and numb
rely on the common sense of some
to save them from, the trials that lie
before us hoping to stem the evil course,
while they just find a place to play

Must the past be repeated, by the
indifferent who will retreat, allowing
things to pass them by, without even
trying to understand that our
nightmares have become a reality

by E T Waldron

The Rider

A boy told me

if he roller-skated fast enough

his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard

for trying to be a champion.

What I wonder tonight

pedaling hard down King William Street

is if it translates to bicycles.

A victory! To leave your loneliness

panting behind you on some street corner

while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas,

pink petals that have never felt loneliness,

no matter how slowly they fell.


by Naomi Shihab Nye

Hidden Mystery

For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is but a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.In the deepest depths of you and me
In the deepest depths of we
Lies the most beautiful jewel
Shining forth eternally

Within that precious jewel
Within that priceless piece of we
Lies a time beyond all time
Lies a place beyond all space

Within that sacred source of radiance
Lies a love beyond all love
Waiting
          Waiting
                    Waiting
Ever so patiently

Waiting for you, waiting for me
Waiting patiently for all to see
The beauty that is you inside of me
The beauty that is me inside of thee

In the deepest depths of you and me
In the deepest depths of we
Lies the love and wisdom
Of all Eternity


By Fred Burks

Look Well to This Day

Look well to this day,
For it and it alone is life.
In its brief course
Lie all the essence of your existence:

The Glory of Growth
The Satisfaction of Achievement
The Splendor of Beauty

For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is but a vision.
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

by Anonymous, 50 B.C.

RIP Amanda Michelle Todd - November 27, 1996 - October 10, 2012

In her life Amanda Todd suffered at the hands of bullies who stalked her and harassed her, in an ordeal that started in cyberspace and spilled into the schoolyard.

Before she died at the age of 15, Amanda created a video telling of her painful experiences in the hope of saving other youths such suffering.

"I'm not doing this for attention. I'm doing this to be an inspiration and to show that I can be strong," Amanda wrote.

Her dream of helping kids is being carried on in the Amanda Todd Legacy, established by her family. This initiative will raise money for anti-bullying education and for support programs to help young people with mental health problems.

Despite growing awareness about the potentially devastating consequences of bullying, advocates working to combat the problem say they're badly in need of financial support.

The Todd family knows Amanda would want to help, to see her mission carried on.

"Amanda was a very caring individual. She would help others who needed help," Amanda's mother Carol told the Vancouver Sun. "One of Amanda's goals was to get her message out there and have it used as a learning tool for others."

It is a message that must be heard; a message aimed at ending bullying.

"We as adults have to pay attention to it. We have to recognize when we see it happening, and then once we see it happening we have to address it properly," British Columbia Premier Christy Clark told the Vancouver Sun in an interview following Amanda's death. "I don't believe for a second that anyone who is bullied doesn't want to report the fact that they were bullied; they don't trust that the people to whom they'll report it will use the information in a way that's going to protect them."

As reported by the Vancouver Sun, "In putting together her video, which Amanda did all on her own, Carol said her daughter wanted to help other young people who are being bullied and to bring attention and education to the problem in the hope of seeing it eradicated."

"I have lost one child but know she wanted her story to save 1,000 more."

For more information please visit:

https://vancouverfoundation.ca/Amanda/donateonline.asp 

The Beautiful Changes

1979 from ne033x on Vimeo.

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides   

The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies

On water; it glides

So from the walker, it turns

Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you   

Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed   

By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;   

As a mantis, arranged

On a green leaf, grows

Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves   

Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says   

They are not only yours; the beautiful changes   

In such kind ways,   

Wishing ever to sunder

Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose   

For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

by Richard Wilbur

"Goodbye, my friend, goodbye"

Goodbye, my friend, goodbye
My love, you are in my heart.
It was preordained we should part
And be reunited by and by.
Goodbye: no handshake to endure.
Let's have no sadness — furrowed brow.
There's nothing new in dying now
Though living is no newer.

by Sergei Aleksandrovich Esenin

Original in Russian:

До свиданья, друг мой, до свиданья. Милый мой, ты у меня в груди. Предназначенное расставанье Обещает встречу впереди.

До свиданья, друг мой, без руки, без слова, Не грусти и не печаль бровей,- В этой жизни умирать не ново, Но и жить, конечно, не новей.

ne033x notes

Written in his own blood, and given to a friend the day before he hanged himself, or so it is assumed.

All Is Finished - Tribute to Russell Means

I wanted to give something of my past to my grandson.
I told him that I would sing the sacred wolf song over him.
In my song, I appealed to the wolf to come and preside over us, while I would perform the wolf ceremony.
So that the bondage between my grandson and the wolf would be life long.
I sang.
In my voice was the hope that clings to every heartbeat.
I sang.
In my words were the powers I inherited from my forefathers.
I sang.
In my cupped hands lay a spruce seed, the link to creation.
I sang.
In my eyes, sparkled love.
And the song floated on the sun's rays from tree to tree.
When I had ended, it was as if the whole world listened with us to hear the wolf's reply.
We waited a long time but none came.
Again I sang, humbly but as invitingly as I could, until my throat ached and my voice gave out.
All of a sudden I realized why no wolves had heard my sacred song.
There were none left!
My heart filled with tears.
I could no longer give my grandson faith in the past, our past.
I wept in silence.
All is finished!
...Chief Dan George Salish (1899-1981)

Rended My Enemies

Such victory one can declare
Healing to the mind of every care.
Broken cords of entanglement
Are gone for good.

Freedom from all oppression,
Shattered depression.
Rended my enemies
In pieces!

Freedom as you go,
Rejoice for God is good.
It's grand to know
Fear not the oppression of the enemy
For it shall not stand.

Be joyful in the Lord
While He holds your hand.
Read My Word to grasp Truth
To learn I AM for you!
Forget things of old
Trust in the Truth told!


 by Anthony Reagan

Native Commandments

Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect.
Remain close to the Great Spirit.
Show great respect for your fellow beings.
Work together for the benefit of all Mankind.
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed.
Do what you know to be right.
Look after the well being of mind and body.
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good.
Be truthful and honest at all times.
Take full responsibility for your actions.
Let us greet the dawn of a new day
when all can live as one with nature
and peace reigns everywhere.
Oh Great Spirit, bring to our brothers
the wisdom of Nature and the knowledge
that if her laws are obeyed
this land will again flourish
and grasses and trees will grow as before.
Guide those that through their councils
seek to spread the wisdom of their leaders to all people.
Heal the raw wounds of the earth
and restore to our soul the richness
which strengthens men's bodies
and makes them wise in their councils.
Bring to all the knowledge that great cities
live only through the bounty
of the good earth beyond their paved streets
and towers of stone and steel.


by  Jasper Saunkeah, Cherokee