Suicide. The act of taking ones own life. Ending everything in an instant.
Some see it as weakness. I see it as selfishness.
Truthfully, we are all suffering in one form or another. No one has a perfect life. Maybe there are those who have built themselves up to live through the suffering and now live in comfort. Maybe, but I trust they’re seldom seen.
Pain is there to make us grow. Pain is there as a lesson. Or is it? I mean, not everyone has to suffer. No woman deserves to be raped for a quick perverse release and have her precious innocence torn out of her. No child should ever feel the wrath of a tired father’s fists. No man should ever have to bear witness to his beloved wife wasting away with another man beneath the sheets.
What are all these troubled souls required to conquer? The malice of life’s shortest straw?
I keep hope in the future as a sometimes-bleak reminder that my duty as a human has not been fulfilled yet. I have my reasons to leave. I have my weakness to carry and perpetually display as my strength. What for? If not for the ones I love I would have ended my life with a bullet or a noose a long time ago.
The truth for not leaving is responsibility. I come from a broken family. Not the usual type of broken. A shattered glass that’s left only 2 pieces holding each other together.
No matter how many hands come together to sweep everything together, it never fits.
I find myself constantly battling the temptation of death.
Why?
Well, here’s a letter to clear everything up Dad.
_____________________________________________________________
I don’t know how to start this one. Maybe I should just throw out the easiest question.
Why? Why did you leave us here dad? What was so fucking torturous here that you would turn your head away from your amazing wife and two young sons to face the barrel of a gun? What was your last thought before you pulled the trigger? I hope it was peaceful. I hope it was comforting enough to clear the pressure of the bullet leaving your skull. I sincerely pray that you found peace dad, because this world was not kind to you.
Don’t get me wrong; I have a beautiful balance of love and hatred towards you.
Why would you marry her and give her two children, only to leave her alone with nothing but waking misery.
The day you killed yourself you murdered your family.
I remember how painless the ground was to my twelve year old body as I collapsed when mum told me that you left us.
I remember how broken her eyes were. You were her fucking everything, you selfish piece of shit. How dare you build a family through love and single handedly break it in an instant. For 21 months I watched my mother die a little bit more every day. She’s with you now, I hope and pray that she is. I have only witnessed a woman’s love so strong for such a broken man twice in my life, and you were fortunate enough to be one of the men that were loved. You left her here to die. Surely enough she did, and from the 15th of February 2008 until the 28th of November 2009, I placed both of my parents into the ground.
I’m sure you didn’t want this. I never got to know you the way I would have loved to, but I know that you were not malicious. You were a gentle giant in my eyes. You were the life of the party. Your voice was warm and deep. It comforted and scared me. Your smile was so angelic dad, and every time you smiled so did mum. You were her light, and she was your angel. You were two imperfect beings who relied on one another. That codependency was her downfall. She felt abandoned. She felt alone. She needed you more than you know. We all did. I wish you were there to see your youngest son ask why you haven’t come home yet after a week had passed since your death
God I hate what you’ve done to us. What broke you dad? What was so cancerous that you couldn’t fathom your existence anymore?
If there’s anything you left me with, it’s anger and fear. I doubt everything, and I destroy all that I love. Every day I find that I’m becoming more and more of what I hate. I can see myself becoming you. I can see how I creep and slither away from the child that I was a long time ago. Now I am a summoner of hatred and anxiety. I break all my friendships slowly and killed off the only relationship that I’ve ever been in. for 5 years I have loved and broken the very girl who loved me the same way that mum loved you. No matter what I do, I can never revert the sins I have ushered into her life. And all I can think of is how I’ve become the very thing that I never wanted to be. I wonder if this is what happened to you too… I sit and think about the chip on my shoulder and the sins of the father that have passed on to me. I hate myself, because all I ever do is imitate you. I run and escape and destroy. I wish you had left me a letter. I wish that you had left me something to connect me with your suffering.
A way for me to embrace the mindset that you carried so heavily with you for far too long.
It’s been 10 years now dad. 10 years since we were broken, and despite what anyone says to me, I know I have only faked my strength. I know that I am still a lost boy and the world is a scary place for me. I just want to leave this earth. I want to join you where you are. I just want to be alone and peaceful, but I know that I can’t have it yet. I have something deep inside of me that ignites and dies constantly. An ember that continues to grow slowly. I still have my own Dragons to chase, and my own demons to vanquish. It might be too late to live without innocence, for I know that I have sinned far worse than you, for I have the responsibility that you burdened me with. Every wrong move I make is amplified by your karma, and I am the sin of the father. It comes full circle, and every wrongdoing I create leaves me wanting to die even more.
I keep running. I continue to fail at everything I do. I cannot live this life any longer. I have lost my father and my mother, and when I look back at it now I understand that I had to become you in a way. I needed to be strong. I needed to prove to my little brother that we could get through this together.
I had to become his father figure. It’s a heavy responsibility to carry and I know that I have failed so many times. The whispers of suicide leave me aching for death. I want to leave so badly sometimes, but I know that I will never fall to that level of cowardice, because then everything that my mother had built would be for nothing.
I will no longer be you dad. I will no longer continue to hurt the ones I love and I will not run from the very essence of my life. I will carry your burden as best I can and I will live on for the love of two women that have dealt with our hell for far too long. I will live on for my mother, and my little brother will find his wings and soar higher than anything you could ever achieve dad. I will not let this fire die inside. I will rise again, and my fire will burn for the only girl who loved me with her everything. I may have lost her now, but I will live a better life for everything she has blessed my broken heart with.
Starting right now will be the season of suicide, for I will kill off everything inside me that makes me you.
With this father, understand that I will always love and hate what has become of us.
Take care of my mother the way that she deserves, and I will follow through with my new resolve in life.
Watch over my purple rose mum, she’s the only girl I’ve ever really loved.
I love you both. Endlessly.
I pray that you keep Chasing Dragons, wherever you are, Souro.
Souroboro 