Maybe it's generational
The girl with the nirvana shirt and hair like gold shines her teeth to everyone in the group and says "bro I wanna shoot my self." And everyone around laughs, this is how they tell each other their day was rough. I sit and listen and I do not laugh.
The father sits at the table and yells when the football game doesn't go his way, he yells "the QB needs to go get a wobbly chair and a thick rope! Just kill himself already!" And everyone at the dinner table laughs because this is how he says the game is not going his way. Again I sit and I listen and I do not laugh.
The kid in school commits suicide and the people say "this shits so depressing we should kill our selves in solidarity." And they laugh with howls that don't drown out the way that boys mother cries at the memorial and they say this to lighten the atmosphere. I do not laugh with these peers either.
When I tell a friend, "I want to kill myself." And she says "oh word" and laughs a little and I think no not word this isn't the punchline I don't want to be another joke which is my way of saying I do not want to be here anymore nothing is funny here I don't laugh everything has hurt lately and I don't see any light. But instead I say "yeah word."
We so readily make our trauma into humor to stop from hurting because it's easier to laugh than to cry amongst peers but when you're alone it still creeps in and you are sadder now than ever before.
YOU ARE READING
Broken Time
PoetryA collection of poetry I have written during the lowest and highest points of my life.
