Yes, death is final but there are various ways to die whilst breathing, which I believe are sadder and depletes a person’s soul and spirit. It’s looking without seeing, talking without saying anything, hearing but not listening and when seeing is deceiving.

People will come scurrying with concern to console your soul and it won’t matter. Words become irrelevant and no amount of self-love can make you okay. So you go on anyway and continue to exist. You stop talking and walking becomes draining. You’ve been drowning for too long yet you’re still surviving and you don’t even know why. Your smile isn’t yours anymore, you fake it to please people after they insist, “Please smile.” No amount of hate from anyone is relevant because you already hate yourself enough.

I really do try and speak to people, I do, but they don’t care, no one does. Whenever I talk, I either get talked over or ambushed. People flip the cards on me and blame me for messing my life up. I guess, since I know the truth, no other opinion matters. I think of my ‘future’, although I don’t see much of it, I only see death. There’s too much pain in my heart and you can hear it when I speak and you can see it when you look into my eyes.

I used to love food a lot, but now? No. Not even food can make me get out of bed and live. The bed and sheets, blankets and pillows, are my pillar. They’re my only companions and cheerleaders. They’re the only ones who are afraid to lose me. Hence I can’t let them go, I can’t leave them.

I miss being afraid to die. I miss my vision of being great and changing the world. I miss the days when I thought I could bring the system to its knees and destroy it completely. I’m such a disaster, a pity party master. I’m not even certain I pity myself.

I don’t like people; people are so annoying. They think they know everything. All they actually know is playing games with each other’s hearts and being cold because that’s the world everyone lives in.

That’s why I don’t belong, that’s why I’m dead. My brain and heart don’t know how to normalise this. They’re in constant rage, they don’t know how to flip the page. I’m moving in stationary directions. I’m screaming with my silence and I only see darkness.

I feel like despair is my Moment 4 life, because I’m breathing but to live does not mean you’re alive.

You don’t have to die to die.

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Tell us: Do you agree with the author that ‘you don’t have to die to die’?