Women's History Month: Wednesday, March 3, 2021: Beverly M. Collins' poem "Just Sharing"

 Just Sharing

 

Now’s the time, I thought

It was an ordinary month of March in Plainfield, New Jersey

When my chronic sadness finally kicked a hole

In my young outlook. 13 years old and I was tired

Of everything; school, the chaos at home, tired of feeling

 

misunderstood, all alone and unfavored. Tired of

my family moving over and over. So, I plotted to bring

my life to an end. I picked the time, the day and mapped the

way I would do it. It was my little secret. I skipped

school on that day, so I’d have plenty of hours alone to

perish before my family returned home.

 

My calculations were wrong. As the hours

passed, my attempt made me increasingly ill, but I was

Still alive and I was so angry!

 

I left our home and took the long walk to a house we formerly

lived in that I knew was still vacant. I climbed in the

basement window and went upstairs to one

Of the 2nd story bedrooms and laid down there with

My eyes closed waiting for my breathing to stop.

 

When a message came through my mind that was

clear as a bell. It said; You are so young. You are not

going to be 13 and in this forever!

 

When you grow up, you can do whatever you

want to do. You can go where ever you want to go.

You don’t want to die right now. The message startled me.

I sat up and said out loud…Where did that come

from? It gave me just enough hope to shift into

not wanting to die with a shred of an answer!

 

Long story short…I got out of there and I was very sick

Dry heaving and my ears were ringing so loud by

the time I walked all the way back home.

  

I sadly revealed what I’d done to myself. An ambulance

was call and I was rushed to Muhlenberg hospital

Where I spent nearly a week recovering until my system

 

was clear. Most of the time was spent in long visits with

my family and very close friends. There was one friend

among them, who was a year older than me. She wanted to

know all about what happened, and I told her in great

detail everything from plot to finish.

 

Once I was released, I continued to recover at home.

With the help of a circle of support that I was required to meet

with twice a week. About a month after my release from the hospital

I heard news that my friend who had visited me, tried

to end her life. She used my attempt as her model

And thought she had taken it steps further to ensure

That her outcome would be a success.

 

Well, she remembered some of the important details incorrectly.

That was one of the only things that saved her.

I thank the “almighty” I didn’t have to live with a “knowing.”

I was an example that inspired her into teenage death.

 

The strong memory of these events really changed me.

To this day I’m careful to refrain from a fixation on sadness

Or beliefs that disempower. I remain mindful of how l share.

I get reminders that there is a need for caution in how

 

much detail is shared of tragic or violent events. When I see

copy-cat-like behavior involving active teenage shooters, I

always wonder. How many new deadly ideas were sparked

from viewing coverage of previous shootings?

Do details warn or do they teach? It depends on the listener.

I’m so sorry to bother you…The devil can truly be in the details.

 

© 2021 Beverly M. Collins

 

 

 

Bio: Beverly M. Collins is the Author of the books, Quiet Observations: Diary thought, Whimsy and Rhyme and Mud in Magic. Her works have also appeared in California Quarterly, Poetry Speaks! A Year of Great Poems and Poets, The Hidden and the Divine Female Voices in Ireland, The Journal of Modern Poetry, Spectrum, Peeking Cat Literary (London) The Altadena Poetry Review, The Galway Review (Ireland), Verse of Silence (New Delhi), Merak Magazine (London), Scarlet Leaf Review (Canada), The Wild Word Magazine (Berlin), The Readers and Writers Magazine (UK) Truth Serum Press/Bequem Publishing (Australia) and many others.

 

Winner of a 2019 Naji Naaman Literary Prize in Creativity (Lebanon). Collins is also a prize winner for the California State Poetry Society who has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, once for Independent Best American Poetry and “short listed” for the 2018 Pangolin Review Poetry Prize (Mauritius).

 

Her photographs appear on the cover, online and/or internal pages of The Academy of the Heart and Mind, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, Wend Poetry, Spectrum, Mud in Magic, and many others.