Member Poem

I carry a ten-inch knife in my backpack
I do not know Canadian weapon laws but
I know that I am easily mistaken for 12
Wear bright pink earbuds and sweaters that reach my knees
Constantly look afraid and no one
Is concerned about the contents of my backpack

I am a 17-year-old sack of flesh that can only walk when it forgets it's alive
I spent a year in university and can no longer breathe the campus air
Hyperventilation is one of the few things I'll admit I'm good at

Once a boy told me not to kill myself
And gave me a ten-inch knife two months later
Said it was because he liked it when I panicked
I still do not know if this was a compliment
To like my panic is to like a great deal of me

Half of my days I am more panic than human being
I carry the knife so its blade is a backbone I am too afraid to use
It burrows into my corpse
Reminds me that I am here

Half of my days I am more sadness than panic
I cry on public transit and carry no more than twelve painkillers on my person
Bury the knife in my bag
Try to forget that it is there

I have been trying to do the same thing
with myself
Since the eighth grade
When death started following me

We sat together at the kitchen table at 6:30 am
Halfway through my first university semester
An open bottle of ibuprofen
Served for breakfast

I wanted both of us to die.

I took two
Death took none
still
I won
This
Battle

Death has been winning this war since it began

It has been seven years
And I still do not know
Why
Death and I are fighting
How this all began
Why death started following me

Perhaps
In my sadness
In my panic
I
Started following him
Mistaking him for my saviour

In middle school religion classes
Teachers spoke about the coming of Jesus Christ
Urged us to meet him
To hear his knocking and open the door to let him in

My middle school religion classes
Never mentioned how many doors there are in a heart or in a mind
Nor the possibility
That more than one being can knock

I can only open the front door
After Death has checked that the knife is still in my backpack
He smiles and greets the bus driver on the way to school
Death does not offer me tissues
He does not hold my hand when I walk through crowds

He skips breakfast and lunch with me
We jay-walk together and do not look both ways
Talk for hours once my house has gone to sleep
Flirt in empty hallways and stairwells

We have become overly familiar in the company of each other
I could recognize his presence blindfolded in a room full of laughter
He could draw the silhouette of my spirit in bright sunshine with white crayon
I almost refer to our seven-year hostility
As friendship

We walk home at night together
Lay in bed side by side
He tucks the blankets in too tight
I kick them off
Pull on an oversized sweater
Put in my pink earbuds
Turn my back on Death
And go to sleep