Trigger Warning

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I once had a dream where Sylvia Plath walked towards me through a garden. We sat at a table and she poured me a cup of tea and asked me what was wrong. I put my head on the table and she began to braid my hair and told me, “You’ll stop existing in two planes eventually.” I cried into my teacup and watched as it sparkled into a bloodied distorted reflection of myself. The garden turned red and when I woke up, terrified, I decided to live for a few more years…

Exit Sign The word suicide always hung in the back of my head Glowing neon green with an arrow pointing down You lay with me on the scorching asphalt of the mall parking lot While I pretended I had jumped from the highest platform The gravel and broken glass dug into my arms What a relief to stop the flickering of my internal exit sign for a minute “Alex, are you okay?”

“Always.”

100 Things To Do Before You’re Happy 1. Listen to Slow Hollows 2. Read Hemingway 3. Drink Strawberry Hill wine 4. Drink until you puke blood 5. Become a high functioning alcoholic 6. Say you’ll never drink again 7. Think about your hometown 8. Hate it 9. Think of the people there 10. Think of the people you love there 11. Think of the people you hate there 12. Think of all the wrong you’ve done there 13. Learn to forgive yourself 14. Don’t 15. Cry 16. Learn to skateboard 17. Forget everyone who fucked you over 18. Accept it 19. Live with the scars they left 20. Just accept it all 21. Move on 22. I know you haven’t 23. Call someone 24. Anyone

25. Not your ex though 26. You’re drunk again 27. You’re lonely as ever 28. You fucking called your ex 29. He asks why you didn’t care 30. Say you did 31. He says stop lying 32. Hang up 33. Cry again 34. Plan a road trip 35. Love life again 36. That’s a lie 40. But you’re okay 41. Pretend you’re happy for a while 42. Take 920 milligrams of Prozac 43. Throw up 44. Never take Prozac again 45. Stop going to therapy 46. Tell everyone you’re okay again 47. You’re still lying 48. Cry yourself to sleep 49. Cry in an ice cream shop to Adele 50. Cry everyday in your car after school for a month 51. Go to a local show 52. Meet a boy with neck tattoos

53. Fall in love with him 54. He broke your heart 55. What did you expect 56. It’s because you’re a shitty fucking person 57. Hate yourself 58. Cry some more 59. Write neck tattoo boy a letter 60. Never send it 61. Say you’re still okay 62. Scream 63. Scream and cry 64. Sing The Story So Far songs 65. Sing them all wrong 66. Go to your friend’s funeral 67. Cry over his dead body 68. Chain smoke until you can’t talk 69. Buy self-help books 70. Get an inner lip tattoo 71. Give yourself a shitty haircut 72. Pretend it’s all making you feel better 73. It’s fucking not 74. Stop fucking lying 75. Dye your hair pink 76. Starve yourself for a week again 77. Hate your body 78. Punch your mirror

79. Punch your bedframe 80. Punch your wall 81. Punch it again 82. Again 83. It doesn’t matter if it hurts 84. Break your knuckles 85. Get angry all the time 86. Yell at the moon 87. Yell at the ocean 88. Yell at God 89. Try to kill yourself 90. Fail 91. Accept you’re broken 92. Accept you’re lost 93. Fucking accept it all 94. You won’t be okay for a long time 95. And that’s okay 96. Cry to the Chick-fil-a cashier 97. Let yourself heal 98. Reinvent yourself 99. Let the person in the mirror become a stranger 100. Be nice to strangers

What’s Left?

01/06/2018 Last year my phone buzzed With messages of “See you next week” And now all that’s left Are unread messages that say “I miss you” All the nights with seven beers And solo cups of vodka Have turned into empty tissue boxes And mascara stained pillowcases Drunkenly laughing and singing together Are just rapid-fire memories As I run my fingers in the grass in front of your grave Is this all that’s left?

Is this all that’s left of 6’1 and 22 years?

Is this all that’s left of 4 years of friendship And countless late night drives?

Is all that’s left just a rock with your name And a bucket of dust in the ground?

It’s weird that your world could be crumbling in your hands and your chest feels like it’s caving in and you can barley breathe while everyone else seems so normal about things.

It’s weird that you can lay in bed shaking and weeping so loudly while everyone else is smiling and going about their normal lives.

It’s weird that one can feel such a powerful emotion that shakes no one but them.

You’d think at some point the pain would just escape and shatter your ribs and infect everyone around you so you’re not hurting alone…

Trauma Central Playlist 1. Handcuffs – Brand New 2. Drown – Bring Me The Horizon 3. Post Traumatic – Ludoesmusic 4, Bear – The Antlers 5. Sowing Season – Brand New 6. Bury – Forty Fathoms 7. Something Right – Microwave 8. Same Logic – Brand New 9. Smoking to Death – Cyberbully Mom Club 10. Hell – Slow Hollows

Songs To Kill Yourself To 1. Hell – Slow Hollows 2. Constant Headache – Joyce Manor 3. Small Victories – Knocked Loose 4. Selling Flowers – Slow Hollows 5. Drown – Bring Me The Horizon 6. Clairvoyant – The Story So Far 7. So Long, Brother – Twin Pines 8. Letterbox – Why They Fight 9. Constant Headache – Joyce Manor (again) 10. Hell – Slow Hollows (again)

Insurance What happens when I swerve and crash my car?

What happens when the cuts go too deep and far?

When the pills don’t kill And when I lose hope and grab a rope What happens when I fail?

I take a trip to the looney bin And have family scream about how suicide is a sin Well, sorry to say that God can’t save me And as expensive as each attempt might be I don’t have an insurance plan Because living isn’t part of my plan And after all My insurance has no late fees Or a safety deposit, It’s a 12-gauge solution sitting in my closet.

Childhood Bedroom Extend an arm and lower myself into the corner I press a toy gun to my head And listen to the plastic clicks As I pull the trigger The noise makes my soul feel like a haunted carousel at down It aimlessly spins for nothing and no one As warmth slowly creeps over it Reminding me of home But what the fuck is a home When it’s just four blank walls held up by spite

To the previous owner of this soul, Hi, how are you? I know we didn’t get to speak when I met that medium, but she told me the advice you gave. Thank you for the advice, but it was really bad advice and none of it is helping.

I know you had a sad, lonely life and this life is the life you always wanted, but I’m so fucking sad. Is this loneliness I can never shake just the last parts of you trying to fade back into the universe? Or did I fuck up this life and our line needs to get a new body out here?

Please send a sign or some help, I’m tired of wanting to die.

Thanks, Alex

Sometimes I think I succeeded in killing myself when I was 12. Nothing has felt real since that day. All the suicidal thoughts since then just pass without incident and that doesn’t seem like me.

Sometimes I think that I died on the bathroom floor in my parents’ house in 2013 and all that I’m seeing and feeling right now is my ancestors forcing me into a new body, telling me to finish what I was born to do.

That would explain why my reflection always confuses me. The girl in the mirror is just a ghost haunting all the memories I hate the most.

Why the fuck do I hate myself so fucking much?

Thank you for reading.

This zine was made for the Fall 2019 course of Medical Sociology taught by Dr. Janine Fitzgerald at Fort Lewis College.