Sad Boy

Seventeen years old.
Olmsted Park.
A bed sheet tied to a tree.

Sad Boy begins with a failed suicide attempt.

Chris Schneider’s debut poetry collection traces what followed: psychiatric wards with confiscated shoelaces, broken relationships, dark humor, and the slow march toward graduation. The poems draw on horror films, music, revolutionary history, internet culture, and the private obsessions of a teenage mind under pressure.

Structured in four acts with an interlude, the collection moves through collapse, romance, ideology, and escape. Its voice shifts between bleak comedy and intimate recollection, creating a portrait of adolescence that is both deeply personal and strangely detached.

Each poem is accompanied by a stark black-and-white illustration by artist Steven Bentley. His surreal figures and unsettling scenes extend the book’s world, evoking nightmares, underground comics, and damaged memories.

The book concludes with the author’s graduation photographs from Brookline High School’s Winthrop House, Class of 2008, and a present-day reunion image taken at Olmsted Park, where the story began.

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