If You Ever Think About Ending Your Life, Please Read This

Trigger warning: this article covers sensitive content involving suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255. It gets better.

Death had kissed my face tonight. He whispered promises of peace and ending my pain and suffering. He likes to do that, you know. He would lovingly touch your face, especially after a long cry, he would kiss your tears, and he would whisper to you from time to time, “Let’s end it all.” And you would be tempted to grab it. To grab the opportunity. To hold Death’s cold, calloused hands and never let him go.

I understand the appeal. After all, I have been tempted numerous times too, more than I like.

And if you think about it, maybe Death has a list of our names, all of us, the strong ones, us that he couldn’t break in just one visit, us that he couldn’t kill yet because we managed to say, “Not yet,” or “I’m not yet sure,” “Maybe not today,” “I’ll think about it,” “I’ll sleep this off first,” or “I want to, but I’m afraid.”

You see, Death could have cut your throat last night if he could make it. He could have burned you in your house, run you down in a car accident, killed you in your sleep, struck you with a disease. The lists are virtually endless. But then here you are reading my words, alive and breathing, broken but still breathing. He could have taken you without you wanting it, just like what he did to so many others now rotting in their grave. But he didn’t, because he can’t.

I’d like to think that there are a some of us that Death couldn’t really have, not without our permission. That’s why he visits us from time to time, breaking our spirit until we can’t take it anymore, then he would stroke our face singing songs of promises, and whispering endings to our pain.

The truth is, he couldn’t really have you without your permission. You’re one of the strong ones he couldn’t have. And he even though he kept on visiting and he would keep on breaking you because that’s all he could do to tempt you so you would want to go. Don’t let him. Don’t let him break you. Don’t give in without a fight. You have that much power, to say “No” to him, and to tell him, “Fuck off, Death, not today.”

Not today.

Not tomorrow.

Not next month, or next year.

Or the next year after that, and so on.

Do it even if you’re hurting. Resist him because you can.

If Death could not take your life now, unless you do it yourself, then darling, it’s definitely not your time.

And if it’s definitely not your time, then maybe there’s something so great for you in the future that Death has to work overtime on you, so you couldn’t see what good life has in store for you.

So stay strong and stubborn.

Be the most stubborn on his list, be the one that gives him the most headache, the one that when Death sees, he would shake his head and say, “I couldn’t have this one, too strong and stubborn.”

After so many visits and thinking of dying, I realized Death is not a friend that will wipe away all my pain. Life is. Living is. I made it a goal to live happily and honestly as long as I can, as much as I can, and to continuously do the opposite of what the thoughts of death would have want me to do. To live.

You could, too.