The Dweller Alone by Stella Benson
My Self has grown too mad for me to master.
Craven, beyond what comfort I can find,
It cries: “Oh, God, I am stricken with disaster.”
Cries in the night: “I am stricken, I am blind….”
I will divorce it. I will make my dwelling
Far from my Self.
Not through these hind’ring tears
Will I see men’s tears shed.
Not with these ears
Will I hear news that tortures in the telling.
I will go seeking for my soul’s remotest
And stillest place.
For oh, I starve and thirst
To hear in quietness man’s passionate protest,
Against the doom with which his world is cursed.
Not my own wand’rings—not my own abidings—
Shall give my search a bias and a bent.
For me is no light moment of content,
For me no friend, no teller of the tidings.
The waves of endless time do sing and thunder
Upon the cliffs of space.
And on that sea I will sail forth, nor fear to sink thereunder.
Immeasurable time supporting me: That sea—
that mother of a million summers.
Who bore with melody a million springs,
Shall sing for my enchantment, as she sings to
Life’s forsaken ones and death’s newcomers…
Look. Yonder stand the stars to banish anger.
And there the immortal years do laugh at pain.
And here is promise of a blessed languor,
To smooth at last the seas of time again.
And all those mothers’ sons who did recover
From death, do cry aloud:
“Ah, cease to mourn us.
To life and love you
claimed that you had borne us,
But we have found death kinder than a lover.”
I will divorce it fom my Self.
Alone it searches, amid dark ruins for its yesterday;
Beats with its hands upon the doors of churches,
And, at their altars, finds it cannot pray.
But I am free—
I am free.
Of blood, and weariness, and all things cruel.
I have sold my Self for the jewel
Of silence, and the shadow of a vision….
1 comment
This is a poem by Stella Benson. She did not die by her own hand and was not an advocate of suicide. She died at age 40 of pneumonia while traveling through Vietnam in 1933.
She took the things she saw/thought/felt and channeled them into diaries, poetry, and books which are read to this day.
Before you give up on your life, make sure you understand exactly what is going through your head. Write it out. And read it when you are more calm.
Ask yourself: Does it make sense to want to die, based on this event or a series of similarly disappointing events?
Is letting go of the fear, shame, pain, anger and sadness too hard?
Would I rather carry it around and let it fester and eat at me until I end it all?
Or can I say, “fuck it” or “fuck ’em” and just do what makes me happy?
Why not make a drastic change at this point?
Do I have anything to lose?
My theory is that suicidal people, or at least a good number of them, are very unselfish in general. They don’t have an inflated sense of self. They don’t have an abuser mentality. They don’t put their needs first. They also don’t do the things that make them happiest in life, even if they know exactly what will do the trick.
And then they become depressed and suicidal. And try to end it all without realizing that if they have come to that point, then they have nothing left to lose. Success or failure doesn’t matter at that point. What matters is if you can say in could conscience whether you have tried everything you could and put 100% into every change you have made. (Even if that means eliminating people from your life, changing careers, going back to school, moving somewhere you have always wanted to live, & etc).
If things pan out from that point on, well that’s just swell. Keep going with your new found appreciation for the good things in life. If not, then do whatever you want with your life. I don’t think anyone could really judge you at that point.
But above all. Please be a little bit more selfish. Don’t live purely for other people. Live for yourself and the moment. Have some self-esteem and confidence. We are all alone in this world at one point or another.
And if you don’t love yourself, who else will?