is it still suicide?

**CW/TW: suicide
***Disclaimer: Again, this is an old poem I wrote.

is it still suicide if you kill yourself slowly?

is it still suicide
if you constantly have your hand
on that self-destruct button —
wasting your life exploring
the million & one ways
you can detonate?

i feel as if i’ve been dying my whole life
taking myself apart slowly,
piece
by
piece

like when you’re nervous
& start ripping a piece of paper
one minute it’s whole —
then poof!
you look down
& see the torn shreds,
scattered about.

you don’t know how or when it happened
but you know it was you that did it
& you realize,
in the oddest of ways,
there is some comfort in the shredding

it’s soothing
yet isolating
& despite your best efforts,
you just can’t seem to stop

so is it?

is it still suicide if you kill yourself slowly?

fragmenting the bits of you
that are still whole
feeding the leftovers to the flames,
only to burn it all
till all that remains
are ashes.