Driven over the edge in silence,

Never feeling more alone.

Would you have chosen a different path

If there was a friendly face at home?

Walking alone through life,

All you wanted was to belong -

And now you'll be remembered

In another story, poem or song.

No one knew the pain you felt,

All the pains you had to bear.

With no way out, you ended it

With all those witnesses there.

Did you do it with a message?

What did you want to say -

Slumped against a bookcase?

Was there any other way?

You looked at last at peace,

As you lay dead in that room.

Surrounded by those books

That you'd chosen for your tomb.

Did you want to be remembered

For your life or for your death?

Did you fulfill some sweet revenge

As you exhaled your final breath?

Was it anger that propelled you

To English class that day?

Did you feel your friends, your school,

Your father, had some cruel debt to pay?

The power of your actions

Continues decades on -

You touched more people than you ever knew,

People who can't believe you're gone.

They talk of you all over the world,

In any way they can.

In our minds, Jeremy, you live on -

Was that your final plan?

Driven over the edge in silence,

You never shed a tear.

In your short life you never screamed -

Not loud enough to hear.

Like your life, your death was quick -

It was all over in a flash.

But your deed's power will live ever on,

Long after you've turned to ash.

Copyright © Catriona Elizabeth Mowat 2008