The poetry of a suicide hotline [Bad Poetry Day]

Poetry can be seen as two things– a moment of clarity in a time of emotional urgency and “one person talking to another” (T.S. Eliot).  Working at a suicide hotline, you have both.  You have people in a time of emotional crisis, having the clarity to talk to another person– a more or less anonymous stranger– about the darkest point in their life.

So it’s no surprise that when you take snippets of conversation from a suicide hotline that it becomes some pretty engaging, heartfelt poetry.  This comes from this article in Obit magazine, where a guy who worked a suicide hotline compiled some of these bits of anonymous conversation.  Read the whole article for the whole story, but we’ve got some of the poetry here:

Hit A Tree And The Tree Won
I hate oak trees. they stink. whoever said
nothing so lovely as a tree — shit. That pussy
never had a 20 year old son wrap hisself around one.

$58
or
If It’s Not My Fault, How Come It’s Happening To Me?
He hurts me, hurts me
my mother’s boyfriend
— rapes me everywhere, then when he’s done
he slaps me on the private and calls me a whore.
I’m only 16, so I’ll go to training school if anyone finds out:
he told me. he laughs at me.
I have $58 to run away. do you think that’s enough?

Springtime
All winter everyone’s as miserable as me
Shivery. Dodging the rain. Cold grey sad.
I hate springtime. Know why?
Everyone’s in LOVE!

NewlyWed Game
When I watch the Newlywed Game
I almost cry
All my friends got a better life than me

Shiny Tracks
I got two dead feet. If you ever put your feet in
the closet and closed the door and forgot about them, that’s
how it feels. Crushed ’em. Don’t ask me how. Sixteen years
I was a carpenter. Now can’t do anything. Sit at home. Try
to take care of my wife. She’s got a bad stomach. Some kind
of cancer: Six months to live. I want to take a bottle of valium, a
pint of whiskey, make that TWO pints, and just go out and lie
down on the Shiny Tracks. You know what they are, don’t you?
Amtrack. They’re a good train.
They don’t stop for nothing.

Quiet Country Girl
I’m a quiet country girl
clean and good hearted
I like to drink water straight from the well
cause it tastes fresher than city water
and cause this is where we got roots
everything’s great!
and tonight I get to shoot up smack
and sell myself to my mother’s friend for a whole
hundred dollars!
Guess that’ll be enough to fix the tractor!