Not worth your life

[twist]

Hang on, don't do it!
It'll blow over
Most things do
It's not worth it, my dear
Not worth a sleepless night
Not worth your life
You live and you learn
Must learn to get a thick skin
In the grand scheme
It's a tiny thing
It's always worse in your head
It's not worth a second thought
Laugh it off
Shrug it off
Tomorrow just yesterday's news
It won't happen again
If only we'd met...

[Pete Ak]

If you've deliberately chosen words/phrases that are useless to anyone seriously considering taking their own life, then the almost sardonic approach is interesting as it builds to a climax which I'd describe as 'wry'. However - it might feasibly be that you believe these are helpful words to those on the verge of suicide and your poem is a serious entreaty to them. (I don't think that can be the case but if it is you need educating.)
Whichever is true there are always at least 2 things to consider in a poem like this, the message being one - the technique being the other. In some cases, but not all, the message is so powerful that it can carry a poem with poor technique and occasionally the technical aspects of a poem are so clever/vivid/meaningful etc that the message can be the least important part of the composition. Here I think we need a stronger message.

[hillwalker]

I'm assuming this is the mantra spouted by a misinformed social worker to someone suffering depression - recorded with a pinch of humour.

I think it would work better if you inserted a space before the final line for it to be effective - as it stands I didn't undertand what you were getting at on first reading. And personally I'd have added the word 'sooner' right at the end...

Also two 'learn's (line 7 and 8) isn't great.

H

[twist]

I've been rock bottom and know what it feels like. Unfortunately most people aren't sympathetic even psychiatrists. I've thrown a glass of water over one but I digress. People throw cliches at you but all you sometimes need to save you is a kind stranger. Most people care only when it's too late. I guess the poem doesn't convey my sentiments.

[Delta40]

Can you really put such pain into perspective with the grand scheme? Like you say, people throw cliches at you and I think the term 'grand scheme' is definitely one of them. There lies the challenge for the writer!

[twist]

I've been close, Delta. I would like to have spoken to my old self and said it's not important, let it go. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger is a another cliche but a true one.

[hillwalker]

I saw a sardonic kind of humour at play here - are you saying your sentiments weren't along these lines?

Perhaps you need to somehow clarify the set-up.
What I'm still not sure about in your poem is - are these gems of wisdom spoken by your narrator to some depressed soul, or are they words spoken by a third person to the narrator?
In other words, who's writing the poem? The psychiatrist or the patient?

H

[cacian]

twist this is a great piece I like the way it speaks to me.

[twist]

You're very kind cacian. Maybe I should call it Hindsight??

[firefangled]

Twist, I have to agree with what has been said, the only way I can read this as-is is sardonically or dark humor. People on the edge of suicide are far from the big picture; they're deep inside their own struggle. If I'm on the brink of suicide, it's all about me.

You could use this poem as an outline for getting there: what precisely should they cling to, children, a specific point in their life when they were happy, some specific act where they knew their strength...? Considering the ending, with the unspoken "sooner," it is implied that doesn't know this person very well, but there could still be an appeal of "I care."

What I'm trying to say is you will have to write this in flesh and blood and real sensory experience to make it work. If you do this first, then to interject sardonic (if you so choose) will work better.

Anne Sexton wrote in "Wanting To Die:"

"But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build."

[twist]

Firefangled thanks for your comments. I'll bear them in mind while re-writing.

[Xillus_Xavier]

I agree with Pete. This needs a stronger message and there are many cliche lines needing serious attention/rework.