I don't want to be misunderstood,
losing a friend to suicide is incredibly hard
but what I find most unnerving is how infectious
the idea of escape can be.

sorry about the length, but this one's important to me**

I thought I was above this- no, I thought I’d conquered it. Recently someone told me confidence like that is only seen in the naive. I’d have to agree.
No fancy words, no beating around the bush. Being blunt is the only way I can really say the truth.

I’m afraid, deathly afraid, of dying.

It’s there in the way I don’t trust my body, the way if it’s too late at night I don’t want to fall asleep because I can’t feel my heart beating and if I sleep it might just stay that way, so I dig my fingers into the side of my neck, only calming when I find the pulse.

It’s there when I’m consumed by guilt while procrastinating, because deep down I know I’m throwing away time I will never get back, time I could’ve been outside or with friends or making something beautiful happen for this unlikely world into which I was born.

It’s there when I recount what I’ve done in a day to make sure I’m doing something, when I tell myself I’ve already lived 1/6th of today’s average human life, when I make myself respond to anger with calm and worry whether I’ve said ‘I love you’ after I’ve left.

I’d thought I’d have moved past this, now that I’ve started to understand more of this world, the known and unknown. I never thought that looking up to the stars with wonder and humility would lead me to wonder whether part of me would continue on after the fingers I used to type this were gone.

I tried to evaluate this rationally, clinically detached. But it's hard. If I die, I’ll probably never get to learn why- why, where, and how we are, the questions that pull me through life. I’m so happy here. I’m comfortable, I have friends, I have purpose.

This is why people believe in a greater power or pattern, because it means there are rules. It has to be a rule that the good, the young, the ones who have yet to complete their purpose won’t die, believers will tell themselves. Therefore, I'm safe. It seems to make sense.

But that’s not reality. I can’t prove the pattern to exist or not, but if there’s a pattern, that’s not one of the rules. There’s nothing saying I won’t die today, or the next day or in a week. I’m not special- there’s nothing protecting me other than circumstance and myself.

So I’ve written this out- will it go away now? Maybe it shouldn’t. At the very least it’s made me committed to being the best I can be. Have I accomplished anything with this, other than making all of us squirm a little? Probably not. It’s probably best to go back to living now.

Above the universe,
Under the sky,
The stars and galaxies ever so bright,
The sun in the ground,
The light in the high,
While we rest so peacefully in the night.

You have a heart made of beautiful gold
and a soul of stardust that'll never grow old.
There are sweet galaxies within your eyes
and your scars are constellations better than the sky's.
You're a walking universe so wonderful and sublime;
someone who'll remain important across all space and time.

Gil-galad was an Elven-king,

Of him the harpers sadly sing:

The last whose realm was fair and free

Between the Mountains and the Sea.



His sword was long, his lance was keen,

His shining helm afar was seen;

The countless stars of heaven's field

Were mirrored in his silver shield.



But long ago he rode away,

And where he dwelleth none can say;

For into darkness fell his star

In Mordor where the shadows are.

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of naught
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
    So true a fool is love that in your will,
    Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.