Sad Boy

Seventeen years old.
Olmsted Park.
A bedsheet tied to a tree.

Sad Boy begins with a failed suicide attempt.

Across four acts and an interlude, Chris Schneider reconstructs the adolescence that followed: forced hospitalization, social rejection, first love, sex, violence, broken promises, and graduation staged as a mock execution.

The poems draw on horror films, emo music, revolutionary history, and black comedy to create a private language for memories too painful to tell plainly. Each poem is accompanied by a stark black-and-white illustration by Steven Bentley.

“voted most likely to disappear tragically”
Charles I, Act IV

Content warning: suicide attempts, self-harm, and psychiatric crisis.