That Day Poem by Alyssa Rieper

Raging home, I slam the door
Room a mess, can’t see the floor
Unbearable torture went on today
It is so painful, I cannot stay
I fall to my bed with needle and thread
Tonight won’t last, soon to be dead
I sew my hand to heal the pain
Ended up with thread blood-stained
Frustrated, I take up my knife
Up to my wrist and carve the word “strife”
On my hand, hope departs
Red tears fall from four feeble marks
Down to my right ankle for more
And carve on it a “74”
Now to the left, no time to be missed
On that ankle, a Japanese twist
A pin through my wrist to remember the day
How I offered my life away