suicide | rebekahjmarshall

***Trigger Warning/Content Warning – graphic violence, suicide, death, dying, world tragedies

(Poem 256 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

https://images.app.goo.gl/efMH3FNGS9kpa2YB8

I was exercising on an
elliptical machine at the
local YMCA and watching
the television off and on.
Some new movie was
advertising, that I would
never see, where buildings
blow up and planes crash
and there is not enough
dialogue to satisfy me.
The longer the images
flashed on the screen,
the more real the footage
took shape as something
awful, a thing less from
Hollywood, and more
from a living nightmare.
New York, Twin Towers,
a second plane, a third
plane hit the Pentagon,
a fourth plane was headed
for the capital but went down
in a field in Pennsylvania.
The world was coming
apart at the seams, and I
had to get home to my
children to hold them.
When what looked like
debris, but turned out to
be people, began falling
from the windows, my
beliefs forever changed.
To hear people judge and
decry the actions of so
many facing certain death,
my heart leapt with those
who grasped what little
personal choice they had
left in their final moments,
and I wept as one by one,
some holding hands together,
they made the plunge to
the beyond like rockets
shooting to space in reverse.

Several images are seared into my brain. One is the image of the Falling Man, taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, which looks as though the man has thrown himself as a spear at the earth, defiantly facing death on his own terms. “The picture went all around the world, and then disappeared, as if we willed it away. One of the most famous photographs in human history became an unmarked grave, and the man buried inside its frame—the Falling Man—became the Unknown Soldier in a war whose end we have not yet seen.” – by Tom Junod

@Home Studio – 256^th poem of the year

Junod, Tom, “The Falling Man – An unforgettable story.” Esquire, 9 Sep. 2021, http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a48031/the-falling-man-tom-junod/

Today in summer school I am teaching Romeo and Juliet to a group of teenage girls. My presentation is not the romantic drivel most of them have heard before. We examine the play through different lenses and it becomes a fabulous cautionary tale. Each scene is analyzed for thinking errors on the part of the characters: Romeo’s impulsivity, all-or-nothing thinking, keeping score, and catastrophising; Tybalt’s overgeneralizations, one-upmanship, and uniqueness (thinking he is better than everyone else); Friar Lawrence’s magical thinking, grandiosity, sneakiness; etc.

The girls open to a whole new perspective when looking at these characters’ flaws and seeing their own behaviors in comparison. This is a school in a residential treatment center, so the young ladies I am working with have seen some stuff in their lifetimes. Many of them have attempted suicide (often over a lost love), have run away from their parents or their problems, have had numerous sexual encounters in over their heads and unprepared for the emotional fall-out at such a young age, and have been betrayed or misled by the adults in their lives who should have been better role models.

My favorite discussions with them involve re-imagining the scenes using healthy thinking, coping skills, support from trusted people, accessing available resources, etc. If just one person had done something different in this play, something productive, something thoughtful and helpful, it might not have ended in such tragedy. There are always more options. “To be or not to be” (to quote Hamlet) could be a much longer list. To be healthy, to be at peace, to understand, to be open…not to be afraid, not to be alone, not to be abused, not to be so hard on yourself.

Juliet was 13 for goodness sake. So much more happens in life after 13. I’m in my 40’s, have been through a marriage, divorce, children, grandchildren, and have just now found my Romeo. Building a good life takes time, learning from experiences, and resilience. I wish for each of my students today a new critical perspective that makes each of them a “master of her own fate.” *

*from Invictus by William Ernest Henley

#from Gnomeo & Juliet (Juliet kicking ass)

rebekahjmarshall

Tag Archives: suicide

September 11th

Romeo & Juliet