'The Comfort of Extinction' (Trigger Warning)

[bluepalm]

I have today written elsewhere in this forum of an important recent insight: that I use thoughts of extinction as my only effective way to  'self-soothe'. Critical to this insight was my remembering a poem I wrote forty years ago. It amazes me that I knew this forty years ago but only really grasped what I was saying then in recent days.

The Comfort of Extinction

The sharpness of the sun
and the square heaviness
of daily doings -
of breakfast toast
and truck exhaust,
of children's sticky faces
in my lap.

These mock my midnight struggle
when the unassailable logic
of the comfort of extinction
filled my mind -
and overflowed in visions
of drifting softly in the sandy depths
weeds woven round my eyes
fleshy dribbles being nibbled
from my breasts.

[rainydiary]

Thank you for sharing this.  I feel lightness and then darkness and contradiction between all these parts and thoughts and emotions and experiences.

[Kizzie]

It amazes me too how we do "know" earlier on than we imagine, but stuff/suppress/banish these feelings/thoughts - it's all about surviving dreadful realities.   

[MaryAnn]

I keep returning to and re reading this poem.
I've never heard anyone else describe this and it really rings true for me.
That feeling of being surrounded by young, growing life, the day to day stuff...but taking comfort in the thought of my not being here anymore, and that possibility IS a comfort somehow...but not one I'm often comfortable admitting.
For me it's definitely been a way to self soothe...all my life actually...
It's a beautiful honest poem, thanks for sharing it.

[bluepalm]

Thank you to all of you for your responses. This poem, written so long ago, in anguish, has taken on a protective feel for me now. When my mood starts to wobble and my thoughts turn despairing, I remember that it's comfort I'm seeking - not actual extinction. This has sucked much of the fear out of my despairing.