Happy July! Be sure to check out the brand new Writing Club pod, in which contributors go more in-depth about their submissions.

Thanks to this month’s contributors!

This month’s prompt is:

I’m home now.

//content warnings for references to self-harm and suicide

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     Jump to:
                  Bear          Jason

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Bear (Host of With Strange Aeons):

Tin Roof

I’m always in my mom’s childhood home
that we once drove past,
the reality not comparable to memory
and I hope she’s forgotten

every one of my teenage tear-apart
new-tide summer rising;
with brevity comes something new:
There’s a constant ringing

and I wrap back around into something
resembling old photo albums
put into storage for safekeeping.
Time wraps around me

I am so close to seven,
I am standing in my mother’s home
inside her mother’s home
and I’m home now,

loaned souvenirs that feel like my own;
evocation of some yellowed wallpaper
that was torn off years prior.

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Jason Soto (Host of Whatever with Jason Soto, That’s Da Bomb, Yo!, The TV Transmissions, and I Have A Weird One; Co-Host of Between The Scares, CineGamer, Musically Ignorant, and The FBI’s Most Unwanted)

Sharp Objects

A few weeks back, I thought about what it would be like if I didn’t exist anymore.

I go through these mental moments where I just feel like everything and everyone would be better off if I just wasn’t around anymore. I truly feel like I don’t add anything to society. It seems as if society doesn’t want anything to do with me. I think this because I see how other people on the internet interact with different content creators.

Other content creators make content, whether it been podcasts or YouTube videos or even those stupid Instagram stories and the people that follow them immediately hit like and share. I do the same exact thing on the same exact platforms, and I barely get a share. When I invited all the other Rabbit Hole Podcasters to join the network, one of the things I told all of them was “lets build each other up! Let’s help each other out! Whenever someone’s show is posted or live, hit like and share it on your personal pages. Let’s build this network! Let’s get an audience!” And yet, sometimes, not everyone does that.

So maybe it’s me. Maybe people don’t like me. Maybe I shouldn’t be around anymore. So, what’s the point?

Then I got all Jimmy Stewart from “It’s A Wonderful Life” and wish I wasn’t even born to begin with and pondered what everyone’s life would’ve been like if I wasn’t around. How would my sister’s life be effected? How would my parents life be like? What decisions would they have made if I wasn’t here? Would they have been better decisions? What about all my friends? What would Lisa and Bear and Lackey and everyone else at Rabbit Hole Podcast be doing?

Probably living normal lives. Probably not worrying about podcasting or having to deal with a fame hungry asshole who just wants more and more. They would work their jobs, have a normal night watching TV or reading a book, or having dates with their significant others. Their lives would possibly be a whole lot better if I wasn’t around.

The day I was thinking these thoughts was the lowest I have ever felt in my entire life. My depression has tripled since my mom died and a lot of recent events, both in my life and in the world, haven’t helped raised that up. The day I was thinking about all of this, I was so close, so right there at the tipping point, that if some bad influencer showed up and gave me a way to off myself, I would’ve done it. I was at the point where I wondered if the bathroom had any sharp objects.

Then a strange sequence of events happened.

Typically, when I’m feeling down and depressed, I have a “sadness” playlist that’s a mix of sad songs and songs that make me feel a little bit better. I was listening to this playlist, thinking about what sharp object might be in the bathroom and if that’s how I would do it, when The Smashing Pumpkins song “Today” came on.

“Today” is one of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins. And “Today” was written by lead singer Billy Corgan the day he too was having suicidal thoughts. Instead of looking for a sharp object, he picked up a pen and a guitar and wrote one of the most iconic alternative rock songs in the history of music. When it got to the line “pink ribbon scars, they never forget, I’ve tried so hard to cleanse these regrets” that was when my suicidal thoughts started to fade away.

The second thing that happened was someone in our top-secret Rabbit Hole Podcasts Group Chat said something funny that made me laugh, even in my depressed, seconds away from possibly ending it all, mood. And other people laughed. Then a conversation started due to the funny joke or quip or meme that was posted.

The last thing that happened was while listening to “Today” and before the chat notification went off, I was scrolling Facebook. And everybody I saw…looked happy. They looked like they were having fun doing whatever they were doing. Watching a movie in the theater. Starting a new book. Hanging out with friends. Even the ones who posted while at work looked happy, behind their desks or trucks or whatever. And I got to thinking.

If I shed this mortal coil, someone would have to post about it on Facebook. It would sit between someone being happy sitting next to their family around a fire and someone showing the latest book they bought and hope to read sometime soon. And my post about me being gone would bring the mood down. These once happy people were now going to be faced with bad news and their good time was going to be ruined.

What kind of asshole ruins everybody’s good time by killing themselves? I don’t want that to be me.

So while Billy Corgan sang “pink ribbon scars that never forget” I thought about my pink ribbon scars, but not the physical ones you see on my body, but the imaginary ones that live in my mind. The pink ribbon scars I have anytime I get sad and think about not wanting to exist anymore. Just add another one. I’m running out of room but I always seem to have room for one more.

Sometimes when I post I’m feeling sad or down, people will always say “come talk to me if you need to” and I am like that with other people. If anyone ever needs someone to talk to, I am there for them. But it’s not easy for me to go to someone and talk about stuff like this. One, I’m very stubborn (I’m part Pollock, I can’t help it) and just want to figure this out on my own. And two, I’m a leader of sorts and leaders aren’t suppose to be weak. If your leader is weak, how can be tough when the time comes? So I need to show that nothing is wrong, everything is under control. So I just sit in silence, think these things until they go away, my mood lifts, and then some day down the road it’ll happen again. Wase, rinse, repeat. Same as it ever was.

After that day I nearly went looking for a sharp object, I started to feel better. I let slip these thoughts to a friend of mine, who then escalated it to a higher tier, until it eventually got back around to me and I had to assure everyone involved in this line of concerned friends that I was not going to hurt myself in anyway. It was just one thought I had that thankfully passed and now I have no desire to do it, ever. I believe it took the rest of the week before anyone believed me, I felt like I was on a not-so-strict suicide watch, where I didn’t have to be watched 24/7, but everyone had to act differently around me to make sure I didn’t do the deed.

And boy, nothing snaps you out of a mood than everyone acting weird suddenly BECAUSE OF YOU!!!

In the end, I feel better mentally. Sure, I’m gonna get sad at times because I miss my Mom and the other various things that’s going on my life. But was I ready to leave this planet and move on to the next big adventure? No, not yet. I believe I have more to offer. Was I ready to find out if there was an afterlife? No, not yet. Because I’m not done with this life. I don’t need to move on somewhere else.

I’m home, now.