Death is NOT an option!

I used to think death was the answer for all of my problems,

I learned that strength comes not in death but in the way that you solve them.

Since birth the odds we against me,

Parents divorced, biracial, light skin and pretty.

As a teen those things would define my position,

However, for some reason I still felt I had so much missing.

Father absent mostly after the divorce,

Mother being beaten with not a sign of remorse.

Looked for love in all the wrong places,

Soon thereafter, I saw my children’s faces.

A teen mom of two as if that was the answer,

Trying to continue school was such a disaster.

Failed relationships one by one,

Domestic abuse, starring down the barrel of a gun.

How about the countless police encounters trying to protect myself,

Nobody can possibly understand all of the pain I felt!

I’ve been betrayed by people I thought would love me forever,

Instead I’ve been used and abuse, something I thought would happen, never.

I married a woman and was criticized for that,

It didn’t bother me much, I loved her, it wasn’t an act.

That somehow ended in an array of hurt and pain,

But hating one for mistakes made, I’d have nothing to gain.

My friend was murdered at the hands of her lover,

To think that I’d take from myself what she lost from another!

Watching her children, family and friends in pain, in suffer…

Unwillingly stripped from the most amazing job ever, that as a mother!

How selfish can another person possibly be?!

I opened my eyes and life is precious, now I finally see.

Thereafter I’ve learned that life is just too short,

It was time to release all the pain and the hurt.

Death was once the only option I thought I had,

The answer to pain, hurt, sorrow or even when I was mad.

Today I see just how precious life truly is,

I’ve got to continue living out what my friend was forced to miss!

Although where she is now might be much better than here,

I must tell you, death is still NOT an option my dear!

Written By: Deidra Collins on 9/22/2017