Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though?
the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one?
That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!)
my God.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Carrion Comfort”

Once again, the mounting deaths by one’s own hand
make grim headlines announcing solemn statistics.

I heard it over and over during decades in my clinic;
patient after patient said the same thing:
I can no more...

this agonizing struggle with despair
makes one frantic to avoid the fight and flee,
to feel no more bruising
and bleed no more,
to become nothing but chaff and ashes.

suicide seems a solution
when one can not feel the love of
a God who, in reality, cares enough to
wrestle with us relentlessly–
who heaven-handling flung us here by
breathing life into our nostrils –

and continues to breathe with us…

perhaps we can’t possibly imagine
a God caring enough to be killed for us
(He Himself created us who doubt,
us who are so sore afraid)

because He loves us,
no one is ever now,
nor ever will be,

~nothing~

My God!
such darkness
is now done
forever.