Don’t Kill Yourself, You Have to Stay

Excerpts from “On Suicide,” by Jennifer Michael Hecht, The Best American Poetry blog, January 11, 2010:

So I want to say this, and forgive me the strangeness of it. Don’t kill yourself. Life has always been almost too hard to bear, for a lot of the people, a lot of the time. It’s awful. But it isn’t too hard to bear, it’s only almost too hard to bear. Hear me out.

In the West, in the past, the dominant religions told people suicide was against the rules, they must not do it, if they did they would be punished in the afterlife. People killed themselves anyway, of course, but the strict injunction must have helped keep a billion moments of anguish from turning into a bloodbath. These days we encourage people to stay alive and not kill themselves, but we say it for the person’s own sake. It’s illegal, sure, but no one actually insists that suicide is wrong.

I’m issuing a rule. You are not allowed to kill yourself. You are going to like this, stay with me. When a person kills himself, he does wrenching damage to the community. One of the best predictors of suicide is knowing a suicide. That means that every suicide is also a delayed homicide. You have to stay. The reason I say you are going to like this is twofold. First of all, next time you are seriously considering suicide you can dismiss it quickly and go play a video game (or something else meaningless and fun, it’s when we try for meaning that we go crashing into the existential wall – the universe is absurd, to get along with it, you should be too). Second, and this one’s a little harder to describe, if you are even a tiny bit staying alive for the sake of the community, as a favor to the rest of us, I need to make it clear to you that we are grateful that you stay. I am grateful that you stay alive.

…

The truth is I want you to live for your sake, not for ours. But the injunction is true and real. Anyway, some part of you doesn’t want to end it all, and I’m talking to her or him, to that part of you. I’m throwing you a rope, you don’t have to explain it to the monster in you, just tell the monster it can do whatever it wants, but not that. Later we’ll get rid of the monster, for now just hang on to the rope. I know that this means a struggle from one second to the next, let alone one day at a time. Know that the rest of us know that among the faces we have met there are some right now who can barely take another minute of the pain and uncertainty. And we are in the room with you, going from one moment to the next, in whatever condition you manage to do it. Sobbing and useless is great! Sobbing and useless is a million times better than dead. A billion times. Thank you for choosing sobbing and useless over dead.

There are poets and other artists, psychotherapists and average Joes, who are thinking of your struggle and appreciating what you have managed to put up with. We are grateful. Best of all, practicing tuning in to your gratitude for other’s staying alive also tones up your ability to feel the gratitude that people are extending to you too, you start to feel the support of it, the invisible arms. Don’t kill yourself. Suffer here with us instead. We need you with us, we have not forgotten you, you are our hero. Stay.

Read the entire essay here…

No, I Would Not Leave You if You Suddenly Found God

By Jennifer Michael Hecht from The Next Ancient World

Praise wild dancing in the kitchen.
Praise sitting and talking to the doctor.
Praise phone calls from my sister.
Praise phone calls from you, a little drunk, leaning toward me.
Praise old lovers who show up when they are needed.
Praise our mothers, safe in another state.
Praise my apartment with its three wide rooms.
Praise the blue sky above the brick buildings.
Praise my back windows: trees, fire escapes, cafe lights.
Praise coffee (it destroys sadness).
Praise encyclopedias.
Praise you calling crying.
Praise ibuprofen.
Praise painting on wood.
Praise all the days in the photographs.
Praise the press of my breasts against the inside of my winter coat.
Praise the name of my winter coat: Big Black.
Praise this feeling of trying to write about the truth.
Praise the Byzantine Empire.
Praise the salt in sweat. We are not alone. Praise making you laugh.
Praise making you proud.
Praise the second cup of coffee.
Praise having a party to go to tonight.
Praise my halting therapist.
Praise mixed baby lettuce.
Praise my confidence.
Praise my talent.
Praise bravery in the face of fear.
Praise my fearlessness.
Praise my fear.
Praise pickled herring with onions.
Praise the Arctic Circle.
Praise the Mighty Tonka truck.
Praise the forklift; praise the crane.
Praise theater tickets.
Praise the repetition of names.
Praise the Virgin.
Praise the Magdalene.
Praise Magellan.
Praise Central Park.
Praise your uneven teeth.
Praise blood-stained sheets.
Praise the land, and what I know about its bedrock.
Praise David, dancing wild around the ark of his Lord.
Praise the job of work of truth.
Praise the phrase "job of work."
Praise your faith in me.
Praise your courage.
Praise my faithfulness.
Praise my dedication.
Praise that you sleep with one eye open because a dog bit your face.
Praise your extra nipple.
Praise that we are not lovers.
Praise that we touch each other like lovers.
Praise that you figure out the movie before me.
Praise my desperation.
Praise my terrible fear.
Praise Jones Beach.
Praise the boys in long pants selling frozen Snickers at the sea shore.
Praise death.
Praise the memory of being tiny and tumbled under the ocean, close
to death. Praise arch support.
Praise chewing on a steak bone.
Praise other people's poems.
Praise the Empire State Building.
Praise swimming out so far, I forget the fact of land.
Praise eating chicken-cutlet sandwiches with my brother at the beach.
Praise doing the puzzle with my mother.
Praise my father explaining the universe.
Praise that after visiting Great-Grandma Bertha's,
we went to Coney Island.
Praise three of us fitting in one seat on the Cyclone.
Praise the weird little town where you were raised.
Praise that you were born here where I was born.
Praise the ex-lovers we have in common; praise chocolate.
Praise living at the millennium.
Praise the rotary phone.
Praise broccoli rabe with garlic and olive oil.
Praise total abandon.
Praise bringing out the harpies.
Praise using every muscle.
Praise thirst and water.
Praise the landing on the moon.
Praise singing loud and hard.
Praise going to bed exhausted.
Praise your poems.
Praise my poems.
Praise that we drink too much.
Praise you promising me that you will stop smoking.
Praise how I moon over you.
Praise how you love me.
Praise your strong husband.
Praise dancing to swing.
Praise dancing to the blues.
Praise the borscht at Veselka.
Praise my first gray hairs.
Praise acetaminophen.
Praise Australopithecus.
Praise speaking the truth.
Praise knowing that life is an endeavor of truth.
Praise knowing that life is the becoming towards truth.
Praise the authentic moments of working with someone towards truth.
Praise desire.
Praise stupefying desire.
Praise north and south.
Praise the yellow sun on the red brick buildings outside my windows.
Praise knowing that it is midnight out the back window
because the cafe lights go off.
Praise oranges.
Praise midnight out the front windows and the Empire State Building
goes dark.
Praise Cezanne's apples and oranges.
Praise men from their callused feet to their beautiful thinning hair.
Praise women from Sappho biting her lip
through the first hip-swagger of the new millennium.
Praise the shark giving birth to live young.
Praise the bird.
Praise the words "decapitated" and "disembodied."
Praise rhyme.
Praise meter.
Praise certainty.
Praise indivisibility.
Praise the movies; praise writing songs.
Praise asking each other when we are supposed to bleed.
Praise talking to myself alone in the dark.
Praise my endless pleasure in the godless solitude of my private mind.
Praise the giraffe and the porcupine.
Praise sloth.
Praise gluttony.
Praise a man's hand pressing the small of my back.
Praise your tiny feet.
Praise travel.
Praise the refusal of travel.
Praise your blue eyes.
Praise kissing men: desert of whiskers, oasis of lips.
Praise kissing women and the effort not to bite.
Praise the lips and the tongues and the grease.
Praise the feast.
Praise agony.
Praise defeat.
Praise that we used to dance in public and that now we dance at home.
Praise faith.
Praise glory.
Praise praise.
Praise your brilliant heart.
Praise the mystical abundance of your horrifying heart.
No, I will not leave you if you want to worship God.

Listen (RealAudio, 2:04)

"A History of Doubt," Speaking of Faith (May 3, 2007)

A History of Doubt

"...right now the truth is I don't think that there is much pride in doubt or much recognition that it has a rich history. And I think that that's really crucial right now, especially because of the way that belief is coming up again as part of policy. That kind of idea, it's got to be met with the voices of people who are looking at things from the other side. And right now, you know, well, I think I'd like to contextualize this a little bit and say that America in the beginning of the 20th century was a wonderful time to be a doubter. You know, Thomas Edison tells The New York Times he doesn't believe in an afterlife. You know, that's something that most people believe in an afterlife wouldn't tell The New York Times today. It was thought of as — the whole idea of nonconformism, of questioning, of bucking the dominant idea was celebrated as part of what democracy desperately needed, really, from John Stuart Mill and Harriet Mill onward, that idea of liberty as being something you have to keep enacting, otherwise you'll lose it.

"And that was celebrated in the beginning of the 20th century. And we really see that close down with the Cold War because the United States felt that it had, well, it had a violent, tense enemy in the communist world, and that communism was equated with making legalist gestures of atheism. Well, that made it seem that atheism was treasonous. And that's when 'Under God' went into the pledge and 'In God We Trust' went on all the money. And when you look at the congressional record, it's very specifically against communist atheism that those things were done.

"Well, we live in a very different world now. In the early 21st century, the murderous tension that we have in the world is with fundamentalist religion that's willing to commit terror. And so it's time to change our stance a little bit."

-- Jennifer Michael Hecht, poet and writer of Doubt: A History and The Happiness Myth in conversation with Krista Tippeett on Speaking of Faith (5/3/07)