Twenty-Four Minutes to Midnight

It wasn’t a wave. It was a goddamned Tsunami. And I nearly let go.

Photo by Laura Cleffmann on Unsplassh .

July 1st, 2019. 11:37pm.
Twenty-four minutes to my birthday.

The air was thick as wet wool, the kind that sticks to your skin and crawls down your throat. I was on the 13th floor ,the bad-luck number ,but I wasn’t there for luck. I was there because it was high enough to end it, but not so high they’d think it was for show. I didn’t want spectacle. I wanted silence.

The ledge was gritty under my palms. Real. No metaphor. Just concrete that bit back. My knees were shaking, not from fear, from the adrenaline of decision. The city below looked like static, noise wrapped in neon. A place I didn’t belong in. Not really. Not anymore.

Beside me was a dog-eared script from some old production I’d done. Back when I still thought acting could save me. I flipped to the page, found the line that always hit:
“Where would you be without punk rock?”
And there, scrawled in my own trembling handwriting, two words:
“Fucking dead.”

It wasn’t a performance. It never was. That line didn’t belong to the character. It belonged to me. And I wasn’t reading it anymore, I was living it.

They talk about suicidal thoughts like they’re a cry for help.
Let me be clear:
I wasn’t crying. I was deciding.

The static in my head was louder than the city.
I cracked open another can.
Warm. Metallic. Sharp enough to cut through the doubt.
By number thirteen, the edges softened.
By number seventeen, the fear was gone.
Only the pull remained.

That goddamn pull.
Like gravity had grown teeth and was chewing through my spine.
Like the concrete below was calling my name in a voice that sounded like mine, only more honest.
It didn’t promise relief.
It promised nothing.
And at the time, that felt like a fair fucking trade.

I remember thinking: At least let me leave a note that won’t ruin them.
So I grabbed my journal, scratched it out:
“If you find this, it’s not your fault. This is on me. Sorry for the mess.”

Even then, I was trying to make my death palatable.
Trying not to inconvenience anyone with my absence.
What kind of fucked-up instinct is that?

I wasn’t drunk. I was drowning.
And somewhere, in the haze between seventeen cans and blackout,
I started crying.Not sobbing.
Not cinematic.
Just quiet, broken tears sliding down a face that didn’t feel like mine anymore.
Like some ghost inside me still wanted to live.
Still knew what it meant to hurt.

And then…
Darkness.

Not the final kind.
Not peace.
Just blackout.

And I woke up.
Still here.
Still breathing.
Still carrying the same goddamn weight I tried to throw off that ledge.

Head pounding.
Mouth dry.
Failure stinging sharper than any wound.

Not the failure to live.
The failure to die right.
To disappear clean.

Even that, I fucked up.
Still here.
Still writing lines no one asked for.
Still dragging my fucking heart through the days like a body bag.
Still haunted. - Shain

Shain’s Notes:

This wasn’t written for applause.
It’s not trauma porn.
It’s not content.

It’s what happened.

And if you’ve ever been there,
On that ledge,
With the static,
With the cans,
With the silence that never leaves you

You’re not alone.
You’re not weak.
You’re not broken.

You’re still here.
Like me.
And for now,
that’s enough.-Shain

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I don’t write for reach.
I write because silence almost killed me.

If this held something for you, let it go find someone else.