Hours spent searching, searching

Which of these will do it?

Which will be the one?

Can I use the one I have?

Or will I have to buy something new?

Finally, I find an answer I know will work

Midol.

Midol will be the one

Who will ever guess it?

After all, is there anything suspicious

About a girl buying Midol

To get her through the month?

I have to wait

A long torturous wait

I keep a ribbon on my wrist

That says, “Do not open before Christmas.”

I will not open it at all

Christmas comes and goes

I stand in my room, the bottle in my hand

I open it slowly, and listen for the sound

Of footsteps coming up the stairs

No feet are nearing my room

I don’t care what the normal dosage is

I dump out as many pills

As my shaking palm will hold

I put on music before swallowing my fate

I always listen to music

So my parents will think nothing is wrong

One by one, I swallow the pills in my palm

Any that fall on the floor stay there, forgotten

As I swallow, my stomach starts to hurt

But I keep going, going, going

Will anybody come? Will anybody care?

I hear my mother calling my name.

I can barely stand from the pain.

It hurts to put another pill in my mouth and swallow.

But I keep swallowing, sealing my fate.

What will my insides look like?

What will the autopsy find?

I’m finding it hard to breathe now

My heart is beating fast

A knock on my door

My mother softly asking

“Are you in there? Are you okay?”

“I’ve called your name several times.”

“Why won’t you answer me?”

My stomach feels like someone opened me up

Removed my guts, mixed them around

Cut them up, ripped them apart, and made puncture wounds

Forcefully shoved them back in, and sloppily sewed me up

Isn’t it a little bit funny?

Midol is supposed to take away the pain of the month

But it’s causing it instead

I feel like I’m going to puke

The world is spinning around me

Finally, I can’t stay on my feet

My mother knows something is wrong when she hears a thud

That was me, falling to the floor

But she doesn’t open the door right away

I start to shake, and I feel something wrong

I start to puke, but instead of vomit, it’s blood

Blood seemingly everywhere

This wasn’t supposed to be like this

This was supposed to be easy

But it’s not

It hurts way too much

I want it to end

I want the pain to end

My mother finally opens the door and comes in

She screams

She saw me buy the bottle of Midol today

She grabs the bottle first, and finds no pills in it

And several on the floor

She knows what I’ve done

My brother comes up to see what’s wrong

My father is nowhere to be found

“Call 9-1-1!”

My mother is on her knees beside me

But the world is fading out

The black is creeping around my vision

And I’m starting to go numb

I try to say something, but I find that I cannot

Every time I try, more blood comes out

The ambulance will never make it in time

I take a breath and let it go

Finally, I’m completely numb

This is the death I wanted

Just numbly fading away

I shut my exhausted eyes

“No! Hold on, baby, please hold on!”

But I don’t want to hold on

I want to let go

So that’s what I do

I let go

I let my soul fly free

I don’t know where I’ll go

Heaven or Hell?

It doesn’t matter to me.

I let my soul fly, but it took

Another two minutes and thirty-seven seconds

To finally achieve its goal

I died in my mother’s arms

As my brother looked on

My father nowhere to be found

The ambulance my brother had called

Arrived one minute and forty-two seconds

After I had passed

No one could figure out the reason

Why I would take it in the first place

And why I would choose such a painful way to go

But the reason to the latter, you see

Is actually quite clear

The pain of living was too much for me to bear

So Midol did what it does best

Midol took the pain away