Where It Hurts the Most

We were at your parents’ house
When your mother found my pills
She was putting away laundry in the bedroom
And I forgot to hide the part of myself that sits on the nightstand

“Why does she take pills when she’s a young person?”
I suffocate
“What’s wrong with her? Is she crazy?”
I crack
“Will she pass it down to her children?”
I wilt

You ask me to refrain from bringing up mental health in conversation
But you don’t understand the gravity
The heaviness
The pain behind what you’re asking me to do

I can’t stay silent
For it was silence that lead my two relatives to suicide

“No, we don’t know why they died,” my mother retorted.
“But, you said it was suicide, so … it’s suicide,” I said.
“We don’t say it like that. Just unknown cause of death. It doesn’t matter.”
“Okay, but…”

The memory of my great uncle and his daughter flood into my mind
Whenever I’m jogging through the streets of my city
They lived back in Japan, thousands of miles away from me
But we all share the same sky

I imagine the agony. Pain rippling up their spine. Thoughts pounding against their skulls. Days becoming unbearable and hours becoming heavy. Someone should have known; someone should have intervened. Why — do we let pain take people away from us? I imagine the secrecy they had to have drowned in. Nobody talks about mental health, especially in Japan, where shame is the undercurrent of society. My great uncle and his daughter must have worn masks of normalcy. Said they were fine. Acted as they always do. Hid their pain, drowned in their pain, swallowed their pain. It is too much.

So, when you ask me, at your parent’s house
To hide my pills
To bury my panic attack
To stifle my sobs

To silence myself
Like my relatives were silenced by others

You’re hurting me
Where it hurts the most.