Zebras and Horses
I am a survivor of suicide, a zebra among horses; distinct from those who have not suffered the loss by suicide of a loved one or dear friend.
I do not feel like you, I do not respond to things as you do, and nothing you do or say can remove the pain from my heart or the reminders of my loved one from my thoughts.
I am a zebra among horses; I may seem a normal person, but inside, the differences are as marked as the stripes that distinguish a zebra from a horse. The knowledge that I am different wears on me like a saddle.
I am a zebra among horses; like you, yet not like you.
Peter J. Warshaw, April 2011
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Boundary
Sleep is not my enemy,
I say to myself.
Yet why do I resist it so?
Dreams await,
A diversion from what is too real
But you are not there.
I should welcome a state
Where all things are possible,
Limited only by the will of my imagination
Struggling against time.
But you are not there.
Instead, you reside in a place
To which I cannot go,
A world suspended between asleep and awake,
Unable to cross a boundary
As impenetrable as that which separates
What was from what is.
Opening my eyes reveals your absence.
Only with my eyes shut
Can my mind win the battle against what is true,
Until sleep prevails,
Which answers the question.
Peter Warshaw, April, 2008