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 safe and brave
an ongoing space

my golden boy by dana

1/6/2020

 
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I want everyone to feel how my doggo makes me feel-- unconditionally loved and trusted
via Dana

Yoga Mortis by Nat Hrvatin [issue two]

12/1/2019

 
My friend Naomi donned a far-off gaze as if engrossed in a romance novel. “Trust me, you have not experienced pure bliss until you’ve felt the gentle hooves of a baby goat jumping onto your stomach while you’re in savasana.”
I followed her to the wrought-iron gates of St. John’s Cemetery and my voice fell into a whisper, “You know this is insane, right?” I gripped the carrying case handles of my yoga mat, swinging it across the front of my body like a pathetic rubber shield. I sucked in my stomach as I walked through the rows and rows of headstones, a superstitious habit developed on the school bus over a decade ago. On bus number twenty-five, we spent the trip to Carroll Elementary School by concocting tall tales. It was widely accepted that if you didn’t hold your breath as you passed the cemetery, a spirit could steal your soul. Or, if you stared too long at the statue of the veiled angel, your eyes would bleed. Sammy Gordon tried to convince Naomi and me that he had counted to ten while looking at the statue, but Naomi knew he was just a liar with a chronic  nosebleed condition. I would have to lose these childish superstitions because for the next hour, I was supposed to focus on my breathing.
Naomi led me to a small wire pen, like you’d find in a petting zoo, encompassing the only patch of dirt unclaimed by burial plots. The dirt was covered with a thick layer of hay, damp from a recent storm. Naomi was wise to bring a towel with her. She unrolled her mat on a spot adjacent to a towering crypt with six concrete pillars, dome top, and name carved in curling script. I stood, adjusting and readjusting the position of my yoga mat so I wouldn’t be ass-towards the mausoleum. The O’Hara family might find that disrespectful.
“Sit down, Kristen, and relax. Remember you’re here to relax.” Naomi advised. This had been Naomi’s five-hundredth attempt at helping me “relax.” Cycling class nearly gave me hemorrhoids; glass blowing resulted in lumpy molten globs; cooking instruction caused Mrs. Doubtfire style burns; and the wine/painting party turned out to be more of a become-your-own-canvas disaster. And still, relaxation is a foreign word to me. When Naomi asked me to choose archery or goat yoga, I went with the less lethal option.
I donned Naomi’s skin-tight floral yoga leggings, bearing the same horseshoe-shaped logo that made me fit in with a group of America’s Next Top Model wannabes who seemed to never stop taking pictures. The last time I had set foot in this cemetery was over a decade ago. Then, I had worn a more somber outfit.
“Find a space and start practicing your inhales and exhales,” said a woman in a worn-out sweatsuit with paint stains, who I inferred was our instructor. “The goats should be here soon.”  
A few young couples joined, along with a mother with her two preteen daughters. Our group seemed out of place, as if someone took the ropes and turnstiles of Splash Mountain’s waiting line and redirected us here.
“What’s wrong with regular yoga?” I tried to sponge away awareness of my surroundings by taking a deep breath.
Naomi shrugged. “Goats are supposed to help you connect to nature or something. And it’s like a form of animal therapy.”
“And were all the puppies and kittens unavailable today?” I swept wayward strands of hay from my mat.
Naomi crossed her legs, setting her upturned palms on her knees, like a zen goddess. “Kristen, Re—”
“—everytime you tell me to relax it makes me relax less.” My hand slipped from my mat, into the wet dirt. Naomi passed me her towel without even opening her eyes.
I caught a glimpse of the veiled angel and my belly refused to emit carbon dioxide until I closed my eyes. For a few moments, I managed to lie back and breathe, until I heard beeping and bleating in the distance.
Backing into a narrow strip of dirt, a small trailer stopped abruptly and the beeping ceased. “They’re here!” The yoga instructor cooed, but in my head she sounded more like the girl from Poltergeist. Naomi and my pen mates smiled and cheered as if they just heard Oprah was doling out gifts.
The farmer got out of the truck, scratched his bristly beard, his wide belly, and reached in the side of his overalls to scratch his hip, I hope. He gave a respectful nod towards his passenger 4 seat, from which a large gray goat crossed. Its horns scratched the roof of the truck. “Easy, Dolly Parton, don’t you go anywhere.” Gingerly, the farmer rubbed the back of her neck. Dolly returned to her seat and I swear she kicked her hoof up and flipped back a long section of her fur, a gesture of silent sass. The tips of her hooves were polished with red paint.
He pulled the trailer door open, unleashing about a dozen goats no bigger than labrador pups. The goats swarmed the farmer who plied them with food pellets. I plugged my nose in anticipation of pungent odors of dirt and manure, but in timidly releasing my fingers from my nose, the air had milder odors of hay and only a slight tinge of urine. I recalled how pungent the smell of lilies had been at St. John’s on the day we buried Nonna. For weeks after, Nonno’s house lingered with the sad fragrance of memorial bouquets. Compared to lilies, hay is a much more soothing olfactory sense.
The yoga instructor herded the goats into the pen, speaking as if she were a pacifying Kindergarten teacher leading kids to a school assembly. “Alright now, single file please.” The goats’ interpretation of single file was more like a buzzing hive of bees.
The farmer stood outside the pen, closing the gate. “Alright, Dolly wants to go to the county fair, and this place gives me the willies, so here are a few ground rules. Everyone grab a handful of food to welcome the goats. They’ll wanna put their scent on your mat.” I shook my head, while Naomi and others grabbed a handful of pellets. The goats were in a frenzy, not knowing whose hand to feed from first, so they just seemed to huddle around the same hand until they moved onto the next.
A model wannabe with long, straight hair tried posing with a nearby goat. The goat mistook her hair for food and she shrieked. “Next rule,” the farmer added, “tie up your hair. The goats can and will give you a haircut.” Her friends supplied a hair tie and she proceeded to take selfies.
The tween girls giggled while the goats nibbled at their palms. Their cute moment was ruined by an unexpected stream of goat pee on one of their yoga mats. “Another thing,” the farmer tossed a roll of paper towel their way, “these are livestock, not house pets. They are not potty trained. So, just wipe away any messes they make.” Naomi and I instinctively looked at our unstained outfits and wished we had followed our yoga instructor’s shrewd choice of clothing for this occasion.
“Goat poop is so weird. I don’t wanna see any.” I felt squeamish.
“Don’t think of it as goat poop.” Naomi replied as a goat defecated, on cue, in the hay between our mats. “Rather, it’s coffee beans....that you don’t want to ingest.” She shrugged and scratched the goat on the head. Naomi avoided the small circles on its forehead where its horns used to be. She read the name written in sharpie around the goat’s collar, “Aww Reba. You’re such a cutie!”
“Last rule and this one’s the big one.” The farmer menacingly scanned the group. “You can pick up the goats, but do not hold they upside down in your arms like a baby. You will break their spines.” The tween girls looked like they were about to cry. The farmer drove the point home, “And they could die.” The mother wrapped her arms around the girls. The farmer pointed a mud-caked finger at Naomi and me. “Don’t hurt my goats.” Naomi and I held our hands up, bemused. “Here’s the proper way to pick up a goat.” The farmer put one hand around Reba’s chest and the other around her hind legs. He lifted Reba up, placed her back down, wiped his 6 hand against his dirty overalls, and walked back to his truck. As he opened the door, I caught a glimpse of Dolly, curled up in a pink gingham-patterned dog bed. The door closed and they left.
It was just us and the goats surrounded by at least a thousand graves. And while I sat on my yoga mat, I pictured Nonna lying beneath the earth, about five hundred feet from me.
I watched the group interact with the goats. Some cooed and called them precious and cute and even referred to them as “little angels.” A lean woman wearing a flowy black blouse silently bowed her head towards a brown-eared goat named Shania, who gazed back at her like they shared a secret.
“Do I have to grab one?” I sheepishly asked Naomi, pointing to the goats like they were yoga blocks.
In a voice as melodic and soft as a lullaby, the yoga instructor added, “Let them come to you.”
Naomi scratched the neck of a nearby tawny goat, gesturing that I should do the same. “Come here, give Taylor Swift some love.”
Taylor leered her black rectangular irises towards me. “Nah, I’m not really a fan.” I inched my yoga mat farther away.
We inhaled and exhaled on counts of five, while the goats loudly groaned and munched on the hay. They climbed over our mats, stepped on our legs, and brushed against us like cats on scratching posts. As I drew my hands to my heart, a brown goat with a white fur on its belly slowly crept towards my mat.
“Go away, Wynonna.” I closed my eyes, hoping that when I reopened them, the goat would have found a more willing yoga partner. 
“Shift your feet forward into a push-up position.” The instructor demonstrated. My elbows shook and my hips begged to droop. “Now, shift your weight to the right and raise your left arm towards the sky.” As I copied the pose, I felt Wynonna Judd’s slimy spit on my right elbow, which knocked me out of a side plank. She must have mistaken me for a plant. To her disappointment, I was neither leafy nor green nor capable of photosynthesis.
On the second vinyasa, a young family passed by slowly, crossing to a pristine, red granite headstone. I was afraid they’d mistake our sun salutations and warrior poses for some goat-worshipping cult, but they seemed not to notice. The son, no older than twelve, carried a bouquet at his side. When the boy lowered the bouquet alongside the granite, the white roses and lilies drooped and the eucalyptus curled into a frown.
I reached my arms towards the sky, then stretched them to my toes. The air wasn’t musty or gritty, as I’d expected it to be. Apart from the goat business, it was as fresh as if standing on a beach and the ground gave me that gentle sinking feeling of soft sand. With each repetition of the sequence, I gradually dissolved my awareness of the mausoleum, the rows of headstones, and even the bleating goats.
I copied Naomi as she tucked her hands behind her head and pushed her hips toward the sky, dropping her head to her mat. Finally comfortable, I closed my eyes and breathed in and out. Wynonna reemerged to double check that I wasn’t a plant, this time licking my face.
“We practice the final resting pose to celebrate our aliveness,” the instructor explained while leading us into savasana. It is a pose also referred to as the corpse pose, because it involves laying on your back, eyes closed, with your arms gently at your sides. A few goats laid down in a restful trance. Naomi watched with delighted wonderment when Reba walked on her stomach. Wynonna walked toward the veiled angel statue, turned around, and laid her head on my calf.
Our namaste was interrupted by the farmer’s reentrance. Dolly bleated from the passenger window, sending a seismic echo from the baby goats. As I rolled up my soggy yoga mat, I watched the goats trail onto the truck. The farmer, like a rural, less jolly Santa, called them by name, “Kacey, Miranda, Faith, Patsy, Loretta!” After calling all three of the Dixie Chicks, he determined his tribe was all accounted for, and all had their spines still intact.
​It took me twelve minutes to get to Nonna’s grave. Five minutes of stalling in the pen, fussing with the straps of my sandals was followed by another five minutes of Naomi pleading with me to cross the veiled angel. It only took two minutes to actually walk the five hundred feet. I placed a pressed lily on the headstone and silently wished Nonna a happy birthday.
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Nat Hrvatin

is an educator and theatre artist from Ohio. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English and Theatre at Kent State University and her master’s degree in Integrated Language Arts from John Carroll University. Natalie’s work as a playwright includes a satirical play, A Proper Homemaker, and an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. The adaptation, Alice and the Dreamchild, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which was produced by Kent State’s Transforum Theatre in 2016. Her essay “Actors Get More Than Enough Applause Nowadays” was published in The Satirist. ​

Sunday Morning Oranges by Kel Massey

10/26/2019

 
Rowan wakes to sunlight filtering through thin white curtains, pulled together uselessly 
against the soft rays. They sway in the breeze that comes through windows that Ari had cracked 
open last night, now that the nights were warm. They had wanted to listen to the first crickets of 
the season, and Rowan had fallen asleep with their song in his ears. 
Ari’s hair is in his face, and he brushes away the wild, dark curls to sit up. They are still 
asleep next to him, and his movement hadn’t been enough to wake them. He looks out the 
window. The crickets have been replaced with birds, and a particularly loud one convinces 
Rowan to go downstairs and start the coffee, where all of the windows are closed. 
Ari walks down just as Rowan is pouring the hot water into the french press. 
“Can I do it?” 
Rowan lets them take control. He knows how much they love using the french press on 
the weekends, like how they enjoy pressing the elevator buttons. Their easy hands press the 
coffee grounds steadily downwards. For a moment, all Rowan does is breathe, in and out, and 
watch his partner’s hands. The sunlight has reached the kitchen, and everything from the wood to 
the freckles on Ari’s cheeks seem to be glowing. Rowan breathes, and wraps his arms around 
himself in a hug. 
Ari finishes with the coffee, and looks at Rowan. They smile. 
“Good morning.” They say formally as they lean back against the counter, mouth smiling 
even wider. He smiles at their teasing tone. 
“Good morning,” he replies, and they push off of the counter and close the distance 
between the two of them, wrapping their arms around Rowan’s own. He signs into the embrace, 
and then laughs to himself. 
“What is it?” 
He laughs again. “Nothing, just... breakfast burrito.” 
Ari bursts into laughter as well. “That’s so stupid. That’s SO stupid.” 
“No look, I’m wrapped up! Like a breakfast burrito!” 
“Shut up!” They say, and bury their head into his chest, still laughing. Their laughter 
fades into content smiles as the two of them rock back and forth for a few long moments, arms 
encircling arms. ​
The fluorescent light bulb in the bathroom does no favors to Rowan’s headache as he 
looks at his hair in the mirror. He passes a hand through it, blonde strands reaching high above 
his fingers. It’s getting long again. He opens the cabinet door to find the clippers, and is instead 
greeted with anxiety medication. The orange bottle stands out against the white wood of the 
cabinet, and all Rowan can think about is the extra pill currently in the bottle that was supposed 
to be swallowed yesterday. Ari opens the bathroom door just has he closes the cabinet, and they 
say, “You know what we should do tomorrow?” 
“What?” 
“Use that orange juicer your mom gave us.” 
“Yeah?” 
“Yeah, let’s go the store. Oh! Also I have something I wanna get.” 
“Ok.” 
As they walk out of the bathroom, Rowan closes his eyes when he passes the sharp white 
light. Ari is the one to turn it off. ​
The shopping cart’s front left wheel is broken. Rowan doesn’t know why Ari told him to 
grab it on the way in, they were only getting oranges and whatever is is that Ari wanted. But 
now, Rowan is grateful, because the rattling of the wheels is vibrating up through the handle and 
into his hands, grounding him in the moment. The two of them make their way through the aisles 
until they get to the craft section, where Ari hops down off the front of the cart and crouches 
below the fancy ballpoint pens. The cart veers left slightly, and Rowan has to pull it back 
towards his partner. Ari makes a noise of triumph, and they emerge with a plastic container of 
golden glitter, made dull and abrasive by the sharp white lights of the store. 
“I’m gonna put glitter in my hair!” they announce, and place the plastic container on the 
child seat of the cart. Rowan doesn’t respond, opting instead to shift his weight off of his arms, 
off of the cart’s handle. He feels the weight sink back into his feet, and Ari asks, “Is there 
anything you need?” 
“Not really.” 
The two end up wandering through a couple more aisles, with Rowan pushing the cart 
and Ari walking to his right. Before he can ask about going home, he finds himself in the 
kitchenware section. Further down an aisle, a knife reflects clinical white light, dull and abrasive. 
Rowan turns left and walks toward it, leaving Ari behind. It’s a chef’s knife, with a golden blade 
gently curving out of a black handle. Rowan puts it in the cart just as Ari catches up behind him. 
“What’s that?” they ask, giving him a small smile. 
“It’s a... um,” he pauses to read the packaging. “It’s a Chroma Katsumi Chef’s Knife.” 
He knows this isn’t an answer, and he knows that Ari knows this isn’t an answer when they say, 
“Oh, ok. Look, it matches the glitter!” Rowan looks, and it does. Both items gleam in the 
bottom of the cart, but Rowan’s gaze is repeatedly torn from the glitter to stare at the knife. Dull 
and abrasive. 
Rowan’s head feels distant, disconnected as he grabs a red mesh bag of navel oranges. 
There’s too many people at the checkout for him to feel comfortable, and the squeaky broken 
wheel turns left, away from Ari standing on the right, guiding Rowan across the bare laminate 
tiles of the floor and around the bare white industrial shelves and through the lights overhead that 
are too bright and too white and Rowan just wants to go home. ​
The sun dances across the bathroom tiles, but all Rowan feels is the cold hard surface 
under his bare feet. He reaches past ignored anxiety medication to easily find the clippers, and 
it’s the buzzing of Rowan shaving his head that wakes Ari. They pad into the bathroom with 
socked feet, kiss Rowan’s shoulder where hair hasn’t had the chance to fall, and playfully rub the 
area where it has. Rowan’s head hurts and it feels like he’s floating, and he closes the cabinet 
door before his partner can realize that there are far too many pills still in the bottle. 
When Ari finishes shaking the golden glitter into their dark curls, they offer some to 
Rowan, who declines, citing the shortness of his newly-shorn hair, not citing the fact that there is 
a familiar static cloud separating him from the world. His head hurts. 
“It looks better on you, anyway.” He says, and they smile at that. The glitter catches the 
glow of their cheeks and spins light to bounce off of the bathroom tiles, reflecting back to frame 
their face. For a second, Rowan swears they have a halo. ​
Ari opens the windows and a gentle wind moves with the light, shining onto Rowan’s 
back as he methodically cuts oranges in halves, the juicer sitting patiently to the side. Sunlight 
warmly reflects off of the golden knife in his sticky hands. Ari sits on the kitchen counter next to 
him, their fuzzy-socked feet swinging between the sunbeams. It is the kind of mid-morning 
where everything is in comfortable slow-motion, contrasting the pounding of Rowan’s heart. 
He cuts through an orange, the blade making a dull thunk against the wooden cutting 
board. 
“Why did you need that knife?” Ari asks lightly. Their feet swing back and forth, heels 
hitting the cabinets each time. It was a carefully conversational question, but he doesn’t answer. 
The blade slides through another orange. If Rowan is being honest, it isn’t the best knife. 
He had tried sharpening it, but the gold began to flake off so he quickly stopped. He places the 
halves in a bowl and grabs another. 
“I didn’t really. I just liked it.” 
Ari nods, lifting their gaze to look out the window. Instantly Rowan feels cold static 
creep into the empty space their gaze leaves on his form. 
Rowan’s feet are cold, bare on the tiled floor. His socks are just upstairs, but his hands 
are sticky with orange juice, and the knife feels glued to his hand, just as his eyes are glued to the 
knife. It is hot and heavy in his hand, and through the static in his head he slices an orange. 
Ari’s hands wrap around the edge of the counter they’re sitting on, and they lean down to 
be eye level with him. They brush a dark curl out of their face, and Rowan sees the glitter 
transfer to their hands. 
“Hey.” 
“Hi.” 
Rowan only has time to look at them for a second as he responds, before turning back to 
yet another orange, and yet another cut, and yet another layer of clinical static floating him away 
from the atmosphere of the warm golden sunlight hitting the warm golden glitter in Ari’s hair 
and Ari’s eyes and Ari and- 
Ari breathes. 
“Slow down,” they say, and Rowan turns to look at them through the haze of gold and 
orange. His head is floating again, and the only thing tying him to his body is the way they look 
at him. “Your hair can hold the glitter, you know. If you wanted it.” 
He blinks, and stares back at them, brown eyes meeting blue, golden knife resting on top 
of an orange. 
“You don’t have to keep using that knife if it’s not sharp.” A rounded indent appears 
underneath the knife, releasing tiny spurts of scent from the skin of the orange. It doesn’t break. 
The gentle wind has stopped and it’s hot again, so hot, because the windows are open and 
Ari is staring at him and their eyes are brown and their hair has glitter. 
His skin pulls away from the handle of the knife like a bandaid being ripped off after too 
long, and Ari takes his hand. They crinkle their nose at the sticky orange juice on his skin and 
say “Ew,” and smile as they push him towards the sink. 

Kel Massey ​

is a non-binary writer from Baltimore currently working on their bachelor's degree in English. They enjoy strong coffee, big jackets, and crying over actual play podcasts. You can find them @knifeocean on twitter.

Unconditional Love for Hard, Early Mornings by Cam Kelley

9/24/2019

 
I could not choose my family, and
if they could have chosen, I know
they would not have chosen me.
But I can choose my friends and here,
at 2 AM, I know I have chosen well. 

Soon, our downstairs neighbors
will come pounding on our door.
We are too loud for these
high moon times, these
stillness save the owl times.
But for now no one
dares interrupt us, and we
are plainly joyous.
Our laughter knows no shame. 

As I throw my head back
and let giggles rise
from my stomach into my mouth,
like soda pop,
I know that no matter the cruelty
I imagine for myself in the morning.
The hurt to be performed against
my own body or that of the ants
that infest our living room 

I will be loved
like the sun loves.
With a warmth, consistency
that’s hard to look at, somedays. 

Cam Kelley

​"Cam Kelley is a poet, fiction writer, aspiring teacher, and undergraduate student from Southern Maryland. She loves to stand on the beach with her face towards the sun, and create poetry that generates a similar warmth. When not writing, she can be found baking or working on her senior thesis. She has been published in the Scholastic Best Teen Writing of 2016 and Left of the Lake Magazine."

reasons not to

9/10/2019

 

i asked followers and friends to tell me why they’re alive. why they stayed. this is what happened.

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  • the world is beautiful, like, breathtakingly, stunningly, dashingly, spectacularly, exasperatingly beautiful. every wall dirty with paint and ornate with mud and graffiti, all the moldy trees and infuriating insects, all the contorted perfect faces around the world, the decaying and the rising, whatever dichotomy that comes to life and anything that grows according to the plan is beautiful. and it breaks my heart that i will never see all the beauty in the world, but at least i gotta try.
  • I’m staying alive because I am not ready to be forgotten. This universe has existed for 14 billion years and will continue to exist for at least 14 billion more. In this grand scale, I get an average of 70 years, if I’m lucky. I will not be forgotten. I will do everything it takes to make a difference, to create, to grow and to cherish. I will not be forgotten.
  • tbh, the main reason i keep myself clean and alive is that i know my family wouldn’t be able to take it if i didn’t. everyone in my family either has psychological issues or strong tendencies to develop them, and the reason we all keep going, i believe, is because we know we have to be there for each other, otherwise everyone will fall. and i know it’s kinda sad and maybe a little unhealthy sometimes but it’s how we’ve worked for the longest time, and hey, we’re still here, right?
  • I’ve stayed alive for my gay ambitions. I wanna kiss a girl! While sober! I’ve had 2 kisses while drunk but I don’t remember one and it sucks. I wanna be confident enough to kiss a girl without anything helping. Also one of those girls was straight and kissing me for attention from her gross boyfriend, I’d like to avoid that situation again lol. But yeah, gayness. Fuckin wild my dude. Gotta shoot my shot and get some lip-lock ya feel?
  • i reached out for help a while ago to a teacher and if it weren’t for him i might not have made it. he’s said so many things and tells me that i matter, i’m worth it, i deserve to be happy, and he wished he had a daughter like me. it makes me cry knowing that he puts effort into making sure i’m okay, and that’s what keeps me going. i want to make sure his efforts don’t go to waste.
  • I’m still alive for going out with friends on nights like this. Hearing the birds wake up. Seeing neon lights and stars. That even when I feel so lonely, so alone, I can at least see my friends have fun and lose myself in the music.
  • I want to be clean because then at least i know i can do it. I’ve only stayed clean for a few months and then relapsed. If i can make it to a year, then at least i know i can do another and then another and then another and maybe even not deal with it at all anymore. I just want to beat this for good.
  • my mom’s battled depression her whole life, and last fall i broke down sobbing and started telling her about how mine had been festering in secret for so long. and she started telling me about all the pain she never thought would bridge the mother-daughter divide and how she wanted to breathe in the shadows like smoke to keep them from burning my skin. sometimes at night we crawl into each others beds and carry the weight together when our arms have started giving out. i stay alive for her.
  • The thing that kept me here most was knowing that my life is not really my own. No one is purely self- contained. To end my own life would be to alter dozens. So, to counter my own feeling of worthlessness, I invested my time in things that I knew had a net positive impact on the world. The more objectively positive meaning that I gave to my life made it harder to argue that I should kill myself. What would my parents do? What would my also suicidal younger brother do? We’re probably a package deal in this regard. Same with some students I lead a mental health group with. I had set an example to them, and I can’t fail that hard without risking their well being.
  • Simply, my boyfriend. It started with him physically hiding anything I could use to hurt myself. Over time, with his support, I learned some self worth and improved so much. Now those things don’t have to be hidden. Even now that he’s gone for a year and a half and our contact is limited to a 20 minutes phone call a day and letters, I find I’m still stable enough to stay alive and clean. He taught me how to be safe even without him and that’s worth everything.
  • I stuck around because for some reason, something was telling me to check things out until I’m 30. When I was a kid, I imagined myself getting older all the time. When I wanted to die, I couldn’t see anything past the age I was in, 19. I was both so scared and so sad for my innocence, but apparently, it never left me. Because, even though I couldn’t /see/ myself beyond 19, my body made me feel like I could. Did that make sense? I’m 24 now. So far I’m glad I stuck around.
  • Don’t want to sound conceited, but there was a kid at church who just loved me. She was like my tail. Although, I think I learned from her more than she learned from me. We both spent the whole day in church because of various activities I was involved in and because her parents were in the choir for all the services. We were always together when there was nothing for me to do– she talked a lot. I loved hearing what she had to say. That’s why I didn’t. I looked forward to her growth every week
  • I’m alive because of the Oscar’s. A few years ago a theater was showing all the nominated movies, and my mom and I went to see Manchester by the Sea. It’s a sad movie, about an accident that killed some kids, but it affected my mom a lot more than me. I remember walking back to the car and her talking about how she probably wouldn’t be able to go on if one of her kids died. I still can’t imagine a future, but so far I’m here and tthinking about that conversation in that parking structure.
  • i stayed alive because i couldn’t choose which sunrise would be my last.
  • My family, friends, and God keep me here. If it weren’t for them, I might have committed suicide or at least harmed myself because I was so overwhelmed with the world and hated myself for how far I went into sin. I might be in prison because I was heading down a path that could have lead to illegal things. God has always pulled me back in and my family has always been there to talk to. A couple of friends have helped a lot too. I also hate inflicting pain on myself and others, so that has kept me here as well .I am still coming out of certain sins and I am still recovering, but I have hope now in Christ and hope for a better future. I still get overwhelmed and perplexed by this world, but I have support and I know that God is working in my life which will allow me to help others hopefully.
  • i’m alive because of the little things. seeing your plants flower, the dew in the morning, low hanging clouds in the mountains, the smell of warm dirt after it rains, the tingling feeling of your fingers warming up after going numb.
  • A fear of hurting my mum, sisters and best friend is the biggest factor in me staying. There have been so many times that I’ve thought - known - they’d be better off without me, but I know they won’t see it like that, and will just be hurt. Personal vanity and the hope I can accomplish the projects I’ve dreamed of finishing also keeps me going.
  • On most days, staying clean is the hope that I can be used by the Lord in the lives of people who have been through the same thing—that one day I can look at someone and say, “I made it through… you can too.” On the nights I almost relapse, I think of the girls I’m discipling and the witness I have for Christ and wrestle with the effects of one hasty decision—and five years down the drain.
    The staying alive thing is a little more complicated sometimes. For the most part, it’s because I’ve personally seen the impact of suicide—both in my family and friendships. However, sometimes that’s not good enough. And, as pathetic as it seems, there are times when my cat is the only reason I’m still here. Phteven has super high anxiety, is afraid of most everyone (myself excluded), and is, generally, pretty high maintenance because of all his fears. No one in their right mind would take care of him if I were gone. So, on the darkest nights of my life, I’ve honestly stayed because I think my cat would end up at a shelter, and he would 100% have a heart attack because of the anxiety (which written out sounds really silly, but there ya go.)
    In general, however, it’s the knowledge of the impact it would have—regardless of how well I perceived to be loved or cared for.
  • For me the hope of tomorrow, there is always a new day. Ive always been an optimist and even in my darkest moments, hope keeps me grounded. Romans 8:18, Psalm 51:10 & Hebrews 6:19 have been verses that have helped me through to the point i have an anchor tattoo with Steadfast across it.
  • While some of these may sound dumb, they’ve kept me going all these years: all the books I’ll be able to read some day. all the movies/tv shows/music I’ll get to watch/listen to. All the laughs with my crazy friends. All the laughs with my crazy family. The possibility of road trips and vacations. The possibility of writing a book of my own. Falling in love. Being best friends with my sister. Loving my niece to pieces. Smelling the air after it’s just rained, and/or after the grass has been cut. Seeing the first snowfall every year. Seeing the corn and beans sprouting every spring. Sitting on a porch when I’m old. Having grandchildren to tell all your crazy stories to. And laughing. So much laughing. 😌
  • my reason to stay alive is my friends. they needed me to keep going, to keep pushing through every dark night. I know just how devastating it would be if one of my plans actually did work. since my dad passed away, every day was getting harder and harder to get through, until eventually i just didn’t want to even live for the new morning. it’s only been a few months now since the suicidal thoughts and the urge to self harm has left, but I think what got me through the worst of it was the unrelenting support of my friends. they were there for me through every breakdown, every panic attack and every dark thought. I genuinely don’t think I’d be here today without their support- their kindness is what kept me going. I’ve worked hard for three years now on my mental health, I’ve been going to counselling and seeking support from other people. I’ve taken self care with open arms and its made such a difference. reaching out for help was so hard but it was so so worth it. I’ve reached my 18th birthday, a milestone I never thought i could ever achieve- yet here I am proving every horrible thought my brain spews up wrong. I’m so thankful I never gave up, because each day now - while sometimes still a struggle, shows me how the world has a little light bearing through even when things seem to be going shit. my lovely friends, my art and music is what wakes me up every morning and motivates me to sleep at night. life does get better.
  • In the past it was always my sister and brother. I always kept going and stayed here just so one day I could find them and we could be together. Be a family. I loved them since the moment I met them. Though my sister was only three and didn’t speak English at the time only French. Of course I only knew English. My brother was to be born very soon. I was instantly in love. To know that I had them. They were my world. They held me together. Even though for the next 13 years we would not see each other for unfair reasons.
    Now 22 years later what keeps me here has changed only slightly. My sister and my father are what keep me here. For a very different reason now though. Four years ago my little brother, the one I was just speaking of, was murdered. Along with his girlfriend and her sister. I keep going because right now I can’t let my dad suffer the loss of two children. I can’t let the sweetest sister in the world lose two siblings. I can’t let them down. I have to stay strong. I have to keep going. It’s exhausting most days, and it gets harder as time goes on. So I fight back more to keep going because I love them and I know they love me.
  • I guess for me – the reason I stayed is because I almost didn’t stay, and it was the total grace of God that I’m here. At the time I thought I would have stayed for my family, or my friends, or my future – but I totally could not see any of that other than the continuous hurt I thought I was inflicting on them. I had a really bad fall semester at my university that led me to eventually take a much needed and helpful medical leave my spring semester;; but the first time that I really almost did it I was breaking down on the top floor of a parking garage at my university, begging that God would actually see me and wanting prayer but not knowing where to go and not wanting to “burden” anyone I knew. As this was happening, this guy walks to the top of the garage and sees me - comes over to where I was sitting, asks if I’m okay and gives me a hug, and asks if he could pray for me (and my university is not even religious at *all*). He literally slept in a booth across from me and stayed with me all night as I finished my homework, and he walked with me to class the next day. In the midst of everything that I was a bit of hope. Towards the very end of the semester, I had seriously made the decision I was going to do it and went about with all what I thought were my parting arrangements – the next morning when I was going to leave he sends me a text and shows up at my dorm, telling me he was praying for me and wanted to stay with me that day until I left to go back home to Pittsburgh where I’d be for my medical leave. Both of those times I actually didn’t see a reason to stay – but God did. And it took some time for that to really sink in… that God wants me to stay. That he wouldn’t let me go. And that has been a massive reason why I stay now. In addition to that, through this healing season I have relearned the beauty of family and friendship, and how much love there actually is surrounding me – and now, I look around and I appreciate it that much more because it was almsot never there. Knowing that God never gave up and there *actually was* soooooo much love and life on the other side of this that I was convinced I would never see gives me so much hope to keep holding on and to not listen to the lies that there is no good for me or my future. I don’t want to live my life out of guilt or fear of what will happen to me or my friends/family after I’m gone – but I guess that is a part of it, seeing many friends die from preventable causes and the damage it does puts things into perspective. But I’d say my main reason for staying is knowing that life really is worth it and precious when I can’t see it, because I know what it’s like to make it out the other side and understand how tightly God holds onto us when we don’t want to even hold on anymore.
  • I stayed alive because I didn’t know there was another option. I was young. I stayed alive because I didn’t want my sister to have to live as someone with that kind of hole in her life. I stayed alive because there was always some upcoming performance and my company is too small for understudies or alternates. I stayed alive because there was always someone not quite as steady who relied on me to do so. Only now, finally, I can stay alive because I want to.
  • Reasons I stay alive: the love of the people close to me, and the knowledge that with age we get better. Anxieties lessen and dissipate, confidence grows, skills develop and things generally become clearer.
  • Ive been thinking about this post quite a lot, Haha. Mostly, it’s because I don’t want to give up. I want to prove to myself and my loved ones that I’m so much stronger than I think I am and I’d like to show the bullies of my past that I’m stronger than they think. Also, my family and friends and boyfriend keep me here. There’s so much see in the future, and I sometimes just… hold on to that. I lost touch with one of my best friends for years and I’m just too glad to have her back in my life since last year and I know (haha this sounds selfish I guess, but she told me haha) that she’s so glad about it as well. There’s so many things I want to achieve and things to see. I mean - about three weeks ago, said best friend and I met our childhood hero and I just kept thinking “man, I’m so glad I stayed”.

thank you for your life and presence. stay safe. stay alive.

Would you like to contribute to a second edition of this post? Feel free to send your own answer to our email or via social media. You will be kept anonymous.
This post marks World Suicide Prevention Day. Today we are launching a new space, called Safe & Brave. This will be an ongoing space for poetry, fiction, essay, and visual arts, full of safety, bravery, and staying alive. To contribute, send your work to [email protected], the subject line SAFE. We look forward to working with you.
    stay alive

    a space to roam freely

     you are necessary and brave, and you are strong. you are smart. you are worth every step it takes to stay alive. you are capable, significant, and brave, even when it feels like you’re not.

    tell us about what makes you feel safe. brave. here. 



    if you would like to submit to the rolling writing blog, please send a submission to [email protected] with the subject heading SAFE.

    tell us why you stay.

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