The first time I tried to commit suicide I was in Seventh grade. It had been a horrible day of verbal bullying on a field trip which followed me all the way back to the school, and then most of my solitary walk home. I'd been experiencing this since fourth grade, but for some reason, be it the dreary day, the shove that sent a foot crashing into a puddle, or the judgmental stares everyone in class seemed to turn on me with each insult I didn't defend myself, something in me just gave. The slight pattering of rain gathered in the short crop of my hair and made my head feel dirty, a grimy feeling that pushed its way into my soul on the back of the insults that still circled me as I trudged down the sidewalk.

And with all that going on, it wouldn't have been any different than any number of a handful of days in the last month except that my father was at home when I got there. Dad was always in the here and now, the moment where you didn't help around the house and you weren't bringing any money in to help pay the rent, not that I could get a job really at Twelve.

"You didn't clean your room again." He said, looking down his nose at me in between the sharp edges of his wire-rimmed glasses. My soaked right shoe fell from my hand and clopped on the rubber mat by the front door. "How is it so hard for you to understand that you need to do this? We only ask you to do a couple things around the house to help us out since your mother and I both work."

No hi, no how was your day. The disappointment on his face stung more than any words he could have thrown in my direction and I felt the buildup of hurt from the day leeching out into my hands and tears starting to prickle the corners of my eyes. He didn't even need to raise his voice.

I spun on my heel and faced the wall and watched my dad's poker straight back as he slipped through the door to go back to his job selling insurance. His form smeared and distorted in the shaved glass of the front door's sidelight as he closed the door seemed to cast reproaches at me and I couldn't hold onto the tears that started streaming down my cheeks.

"I. I can't do this anymore," I said in a hushed voice, letting the tension in my arms and shoulders and sliding my wet coat off and onto the floor. Part of me just wanted to hear the words, but once spoken, they took on weight that I could feel, pulling my head down further, drying my tears and leaving me feeling hollow.

The gloom in the house seems to leach out of every corner as I slowly shuffled toward the kitchen, knuckles hang mere inches above the floor it felt like. The pattern of the tile floor melted and reformed as I crossed the threshold and looked around the room for a second, taking in the slouched shape of my brother at the table.

As I swung my head around again the black glint of a knife caught my attention. It was the bread knife of course, about a foot-long blade on a molded black plastic handle, serrated teeth glistening up and down the blade.

How easy would it be?

Would it hurt a lot?

Would it end the emptiness in me?

Reaching a single hand out I grabbed the handle in my wet hand, feeling it slip a little as I adjusted my grip and swung it around to my left arm. Pricking my skin with the rounded teeth on the blade I realized why this knife had been a bad choice. With a blade this long I wouldn't be able to cut the blood vessels between the wrist bones.

The microwave always used to make this weird ticking noise, almost like a clock; rhythmic, staccato, measured. I counted off four extra slow clicks as I took a deep breath staring at the edge of the knife dimpling the skin of my wrist. I turned my head slowly, wondering why nothing was trying to stop me when my brother hand grabbed my right wrist and yanked the knife away from my arm.

Still wet from the rain my hand couldn't hold on the knife fell to the linoleum floor, clattering and first as a massive scream ripped from my chest and exploded into the air.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" My brother yelled. Wrapping both his arms around me as I started to thrash and reach for the knife again.

"I can't do it anymore." I got out around the tears, the sound of my voice so loud in my head. "Everyone would be better of if I wasn't here."

The floor rushed up at me as my brother let go and grabbed for the knife on the floor. I hit hard not putting up my hand, relishing the impact as I lost a tooth. My vision went dark and I lay there on the floor, heaving huge lungful's of air into my mouth, eye shut tight.

The clatter of the knife in the sink was followed by a hand touching my head lightly. I filched away, eye half opening before I continued to bellow.

I don't think I even meant it.

When my dad got home later that night, he found my mom curled up at the end of the bed crying because my brother had told her what had happened. I was in my room with the door shut sleeping and never even got up for dinner or the homework that I knew was waiting for me. I couldn't seem to move. All need and drive had just leeched out of me, through the bed, and into the floor.

When darkness finally took everything, I slept like I had been successful. There was no sound, no vision, just empty blackness stretching out before me, and it scared me more than I'd like to admit, even now.

On the plus side, I don't really remember a lot about the next day. I got up, brushed my teeth, had breakfast and went to school. I don't remember any of this. What I do remember is the tightness in my chest as I started to walk down my street and saw my Dad's car in the driveway again.

My palms itched and sweated forcing me to rub my hands on my jeans before massaging the pain in my chest that was suddenly there. It was generally a bad enough situation when he was home to start with, his business kept him out of the house most times and lack of sleep left him angry most others, but after yesterday I wasn't sure what to expect.

"I came home last night to your mom CRYING at the end of her bed. In what world do you think it's okay to do that to her, To us?" I could smell the nicotine hanging on the air between us, my dad's stale tongue flicking out to lick his cracked lips as he waited.

A knot lodged in my throat, and I couldn't answer.

"Don't cry. Don't you dare cry? You did this, not someone else. What the hell were you thinking?" he said.

I opened my mouth to answer but a loud yell escaped my lips. An almost primal sound laced with the pain I felt.

"Charlie, leave him alone." My mom said putting a restraining arm on my dad's shoulder.

With a simple flick of his shoulder, he shrugged her hand off and fixed me with his stare again. I look through the curtain of tears and felt the heat of my anger start to rise in my cheeks.

"You don't know what it's like," I said quietly.

My dad opened his mouth to say something and I yelled him down. "YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHAT IM GOING THROUGH. You're never here, and when you are all you tell me is to stand up for myself, to be a man. All your words about how cool you were in school, you've never been where I am. You've never stopped to think that maybe everyone would be happier if you weren't here. You have NO idea what it means to be truly worthless to everyone but your own family, and even then, not to all of them."

To his credit he didn't hit me, although I could see from the taught lines in his arms, he was thinking about doing just that.

             "I've dealt with this for years, DAD. And then yesterday, I have a bad day, and I come home, and then you're on my case, and it's just too much. I'm sorry I hurt mom. I really am." All the energy drain out of me, and I'm just standing there, feeling the weight of his judgment, and knowing full well that somehow, I've failed him again.