How To Be One's Own Floatation Device Poem by Amanda Saveley

Step by step
Word for word
My fingers at the keys are better
Than a pick to my wrist
And I want to believe that my writing can save me
I want to deny myself into thinking that I can be my own healer
But the world doesn't work that way
Thoughts find their way in
They bury themselves deep
Until no one can separate them from the persona they're attacking
So the mind makes up to compensate
It wanders...
Drifting into an open ocean where no one can swim
One tires before they get an end result
People stop caring
It seems that sympathy is a thing of convenience.
Medication is not the answer
One cannot begin to comprehend the workings of another
They can only pretend
And hope that person will draw themselves back in
But no one has thrown me a rope
And thus, I am adrift
I wonder what they'll say at my funeral
Will they wish they had done something different?
Tried harder?
Indulging in their self-defeat they wallow,
Subconsciously grateful for something to give their life meaning,
To add some sort of melodrama they themselves
Were too afraid to openly admit they need
Like a drug
It works into their systems
And chokes humanity from them
So for now,
I will fool myself into thinking they care
If it only saves me from myself
For one more day