Suicide Chronicles: Death Notes Are For Pansies

I think about writing suicide letters while cleaning out the garage, peeling off articles of clothing as I go along and staying in the way of the fan. 111 degrees and the radio is forecasting rain, I want to believe that will drop the temperature but I doubt it. The clouds are like dirty air filters floating above the house, different from the ones I knew for half my life.1

Life. Suicide. Letter. 2

It's not that I don't think they deserve an explanation, I just have a vague feeling it'd come out like a bullet point presentation.
1. Suicide: Why it happened and how it pertains to you
2. Life: See slides 3-5(abbreviated version for your convenience)3

Maybe add a few animations of me winning a race against death for irony, a lasting image of me. The smartass who doesn't even take their death serious.4

But if seriousness is the point then why in hell are almost all suicide letters so teeth achingly cliche. It's not your fault/It's all your fault, Please forgive me/screw you buddy followed by a nose dive into their own personal psyche. Christ, it's enough to make you want to keep living. Hmm5

A note. A suicide note, those are always a hit aren't they? "Is this what you wanted" hard period. "I'm sorry" dot dot dot. The emo kids last dying punch metaphorically speaking. But no that's not me either. I actually happen to love and respect nearly all the people in my life surprisingly enough.6

~*~
I decide what do upon reaching my old high school writings. Notebooks and notebooks full, loose leaf paper with my horrible penmanship smearing the page. I wince at the state of my earlier poems, practically oozing angst at a time when I was the happiest. I search some more and find a small poem book I kept in the fourth grade. A poem about pressing my hands to the hot concrete and focusing on the pain until it faded then waking up in a hospital bed and pressing a scalpel to my neck until it all faded away. A few line poem about being inspired by a water bug floating in the water only to realize the pool had been cleaned so the water bug was on the screen.7

I remember.8

The workshop desk shifts beneath my shoes with dust and wood shavings, but I hold myself steady to loop the rope around the ceiling hook before double checking the knot on the noose. I breathe in and out steadily and slip it over my neck, shivers breaking out where the rope rubs against the back of my neck. I take the first step off the desk.
"I'M HOME!"
I stumble backwards, throwing off the noose as my cousin hovers in the frame of the garage door, crossing my hands in my lap.
"Morning."
9

~*~
I burn the rest of my writings in a metal bin then cover it with logs. When my cousin-slash-roommate comes home I'm in the backyard roasting marshmallows, the music playing loudly and the notebook tucked into my back pocket. 10