What Follows

15th of May, 2019

My first experience with death was when I was ten.

I was pretending to be asleep under my bed's fluffy blanket, after a long school day, with my mom's phone clutched in my small, clammy hands. The screen was bright against the darkness of the room as I gleefully played Snake.

And then a message popped up with my mother's friend name. My indispensable curiosity made me open it and read about her friend's husband's death. An accident, she had described.

I remember slowly removing the blankets from over me and tiptoeing all the way to the kitchen in my white, nightdress where Mom stood, drinking milk or water (I don't really remember). Surprised at my sleeplessness, she turns to me and questions me if something's wrong (if I have a tummy ache?).

In response, I hand out her phone and simply whisper the news to her, because shush, perhaps no one should listen to this huge secret? Mom's reaction was to cry over her friend's loss and talk to her to 'comfort' her. I didn't understand shit back then, but I did cry too because I thought that that was what everyone did. Because death is, apparently, supposedly, a sad, bad, far away thing.

Then I grew up and learned that death is a part of life, a scenario we can never escape. I saw a scenario to fear not to accept. I feared anything that can cause it. I feared crossing streets, standing close to the ledge in my high balcony, fights and cancer.

Well, that was until I turned sixteen and life got way too heavy to handle. Way too miserable and meaningless. I started carelessly crossing streets and driving fast, recklessly watching people pass by, with half of my body leaning outside the balcony, eating unhealthy, and holding sharp knives and swinging them around. I toyed with the thought of death like play-dough. Like how if I'd leaned any further in that balcony I would've stumbled down to my certain death or how if I didn't eat for long enough, I might starve myself to death.

It seemed like I had seen the inevitability of it. The fact that it's gonna happen one way or another and that it isn't something I can control.

Well, until this year, when I realized that I really can control it. That I can very, very simply end my life whenever I want when things got way too flawed and painful. And it doesn't involve the fate of another person who would really do the deed, whether a driver who hits me with his car or the cashier who sells me that ch.i.p.s bag that gives me cancer.

Today is my birthday, and I'm spending it sitting in my water-filled bathtub in the beautiful scarlet, full-sleeved, knee-length, flowy dress I specifically bought for today with a blade, I stole, in my left hand.

My chin-length golden hair is wet and cascading all over my face. My lips quiver as I shift in the water, because it's really cold, but I'm sure that in a few moments I shall feel nothing anyway, right? I will drift away into pleasant nothingness. I will morph into a memory of a seventeen-year-old who -oh, what a pity- killed herself in a tub.

Look, I don't really have thirteen reasons as to why I want to kill myself, but I have seven horrible ones.

Starting from the least severe to the most:

1- Not feeling Joshua's scorching betrayal when he ditched me and used all my insecurities against me, making what is bad much worse. I won't be forced to relive the memories about how easy it was for him to call me 'boring' and 'plain' after I've entrusted him with the fact that I hated how I looked. All really seem to be very alluring reasons to just skip my life. And, no, don't worry, I will not just kill myself because of a boy. I am at least smarter than that.

2- And most importantly really, I wouldn't need to eat at all! I'd be dead. So there'll be nothing such as 'getting chubby', 'letting it go' or some stupid, appetite-oppressing shit as Joshua would remark. There won't be ch.i.p.s which can't be spelt without h.i.p.s and there won't be Oreos. There won't be imbeciles who call themselves seniors who'd body shame me and would make me wish for the ground to split open and swallow me whole when I leak on my, good Lord, heavy periods.

3- The definite absence of a grade-oriented society. Basically, I'll be going to a place where I won't be marked as stupid because of some marks scribbled on some paper. Another seductive reason is the absence of a mysterious, scary future. There'll be no worries of a good or a bad tomorrow. This constant need to stay prepared for whatever the hell might happen will be gone! I needn't worry about a pathetic future. I needn't worry about whether I'll become a drug addict, and I certainly needn't worry about how I die.

4- And thankfully, Lord, there will be no internet. I won't go through cyberbullying that social media seems to be very keen to flag as 'harmful to others' and 'suicide-causing', but really always, seemingly fails terribly at eradicating it. Because how the hell can they possibly change millions of people's sick mannerisms? I won't be called an 'old hag', 'fat s.l.u.t', 'c.o.c.k sucker', 'Joshua's ass-kisser', and many other delectable insults.

5- And, of course, I will finally not have any siblings to get constantly compared to. I won't have a smarter Jacobson or a wiser Aiden. No. I wouldn't have nights where I'd question my existence in that balcony of mine just because of an insult Mom or Dad threw in my way. I wouldn't need to go through all that negativity and suffering that my parents thought was amusing.

6- As it happens, dying seems to be the only option left that's worth discovering in order to escape that unpleasant tug of my heartstrings, every time I'd watch Mom and Dad fight over stupid shit and so openly discuss their divorce right in front of me, like my existence and opinion in the matter doesn't really bother them the least bit. I refuse to go through the pain it leaves behind, again and again, every day. I refuse the panic attacks it cases. I refuse all the tears wasted at their selfishness.

And if that doesn't seem like enough reason why to kill myself, then I'll be forced to tell you the major one. And no. It isn't ****. This isn't f.u.c.k.i.n.g Hannah Baker's shit. It's really much simpler than that.

7- It's loneliness, agonizing anxiety, and the d-word. Depression.

If this seems ridiculous to you, then I'm not sure if we're experiencing the same level of loneliness and anxiety I'm talking about here. I'm talking about crippling shit. I feel lonely when I'm supposed to feel loved and secured. With my closest friends (Sierra and Mason), I feel lonely. With my stupid, d.i.c.khead of an ex-boyfriend, I felt lonely. With my pathetic family, I feel lonely. I mean, hell, who feels lonely when they're with their parents? Everyday?

Yes. Me. Roseline Bracken. And it's all because no one really cares about me.

Look, I know that suicide means getting my b.u.t.t.o.c.k.s kicked to hell because my 'parents' are religious and are always chattering about all the wrong things humans commit every day and how they won't escape God's curse. They always speak of God's anger and strength. They never, however, speak of his mercy and love to us.

It's like love and care don't exist in their universe.

So yeah, I know that suicide is horrible, terrible, lemon, horrible. But I mean, how can hell be more painful than this worldly pain? I mean at least the pain won't be mental- confined with no drugs to heal and no place to go beyond this face of mine and atop this delicate neck.

And I know that this seems odd- the way I seem to be very easily and lightly discussing a dark matter, ie. suicide. So I'm sorry if this method of coping disturbs you, but as it is, me killing myself is heavy on my heart. I'd hate for it to be heavy on paper too and honestly, I don't want to really talk about it.

So, really, I want my death to mainly be two middle fingers raised in my parents' faces when they see me in my blood. I want them to think where they've gone wrong and maybe, just maybe, they'll remember to care enough to miss me.

So I'm not going to kill myself with tears in my eyes- I've already cried myself to sleep for many days (and that's an understatement). Today is to be celebrated. Hell, I've spent at least half an hour to precisely light up a hundred and twenty-five candles and arrange them all the way from the front door to the bathroom. I want the last candle that my parents blow away to be the one in my mouth for my belated birthday. Yes, literally right there. My teeth are sunk right in the bitter wax that's melting and dripping on my favourite dress.

I lift my left hand and realize that I'll never go through that anxiety that plagued my mind every time I made a mistake. Even a silly one. I wouldn't need to torture myself with poisonous thoughts whenever people whisper around me. Cause guess what? Death is the only loneliness one can look forward to. It's the only unjudged loneliness.

I slit my wrists vertically, biting into the wax through the pain and tearing up in the process. It is almost a wonderful, blissful feeling, watching the water taint in the scarlet colour of all my pain through the years.

Well, that is until I realize that I made the biggest mistake ever. And I'm going to pay for the consequences for eternity. Literally.