A man stood upon a railroad bridge in Northern Alabama

Looking down into the water twenty feet below him

With a million words screaming in his head.

 

He stood there, alone in his mind

His thoughts,

His hopes,

His dreams,

His failures.

 

Who was he? Why did he mater?

He was fighting an unwinnable battle in his mind

And long lost the hope to hang on.

 

He had suffered for years

Driving by the bridge day after day

Giving it a quick glance

And just thinking,

“What if?”

 

And for all these years something kept holding him back

He didn’t know what it was

But something kept pulling his vision

Away from the bridge and back to the road

 

But that side of him, that invisible hope, that life-line is gone.

It was defeated, overcome by the brutalities of the world.

And now when he is facing his darkest hours, the world turns a cold shoulder,

Unwilling to help him, almost daring him to do it.

 

How do expect him to live day by day without any will to breathe?

You might go up to him and say “its not worth it,”

But you have no idea the pain he has had to hide,

The false smiles he has been forced to give,

The gestures, the emotions, the feelings-

All of it a lie.

 

He fell with his own conscience guiding him towards the water.

Weights on his ankles dragged him further and further from the surface

Away from the cruelty of the world at last

Finally finding the place where he truly belonged,

He pushed out the air in his lungs with a smile in his heart.

 

He was going home,

He was liberating himself from his own mind

And for the first time in years,

He was happy.

 

The next day the newspaper had a small article, the headline reading

“Suicide off the Alabama Memorial Bridge,”

But it was so much more than that.

 

“Suicide” is such a diminishing word;

A man found freedom that night,

He awakened peace in his mind

Which is more than a common man can do in a life-time.

 

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