This Is How You Kill Yourself
By Dian Tinio
First, fall in love.
Did you ever wonder if it’s ever possible to bring death to someone without actually shooting a gun right in their head or stabbing them in the chest or just about anything physical? The possibility to absolutely murder someone on the insides?
Well, it is attainable and you are capable of it. I am capable of it. We all are.
This awful thought that somehow has been mistaken to be a figment of imagination comes to life in the exact moment of loving someone. In falling in love so deeply. Without limits, without caution, without discretion, without borders, without care. Without care for yourself, at least.
It is true that there is an infinite beauty – deeper than any fortune – in the very act of loving. You can love someone so hard but you must understand the consequences of this very action. With this, you are veritably giving them the hall pass to impair you, to wreck you, to damage you.
They can caress it with responsibility and genuine love.
Nevertheless, they can also carry it rashly and foolishly. If that so, it will sting. It will hurt real bad. Real hard. The only option you can consider is to actually save yourself from the uncertainty and torment that comes with it, but let me assure you now, that right there is the most absurd thing ever – because you just can’t save yourself from it. You just can’t. It will come for you like a thief in the night, any time, any place, any situation. When you feel it, you feel it. When it’s there, it’s there. When you’re in it, you’re in it. Good luck for there will be no way out.
You will either be loved back or you get hurt, and you’ll kill yourself.
You can hope for the best. That the same fire you felt was the same ignition kindling inside him. That the same desire that flourishes in each cell of your body is the very same voracity that amplifies through his every bone, that the same adventure you’ve been longing to experience is the very same thirst he longs to quench with you by his side, that the same love that resides in your heart is also the same love he resembles for you. For when this happens, it will be revolutionary. It will be beyond lavishing. Beyond stunning. For to love and be loved is beautiful, really beautiful. It’s going to taste, feel, and be like heaven. Like every part of your body is consumed by his presence, like every atomic component inside you was set on flames every time he looks at you and keeps his attention fixed on you, like every thing inside you is experiencing this great salacity for his warmth to be near you.
The fact that sooner or later you’re going to wait for him, you’re going to crave for his attention, you’re going to beg for it, but you’re not going to have it. You’ll just find yourself waiting in vast darkness for something you know isn’t coming for you. You’re going to define your worth by the way he treated you, you’re going to construe yourself by whether or not he gets back at your messages, or calls, or does he even pay attention to you, or does he even care about you still, does he even have that tiny need of you as you have this enormous hunger for him?
You’ll start to drink, to cry, to do just about anything, hoping these things will somehow ease whatever misery is clinging onto you. Each night, you cry yourself to sleep like it’s your own little hiding place. Anticipating that it’s the only place where the credits roll and the screen blacks out, where all is gone.
That it’s the only domicile where you feel nothing, where every inch, every bit, every fragment, every portion of pain, of despair, of agony vanishes. Absent like it’s not there in the first place. And just when you feel comfortable in your deep slumber, it starts to creep in again, it starts to haunt you. That even though you’re physically asleep, you’re mind is awake and aware, aware of the same pain, same despair, same agony. You may be asleep, but you’re mind and soul is still hurting, it’s still bruised. It will always be like that, it will always linger at that very spot in your chest no matter how many times you try to shove it down, that’s your validation – you are haunted. You are haunted by the mere fact of loving him – of loving the wrong person. That’s when you’ll ratify yourself dead. Ruined. Wrecked. Eradicated. The finest way viable.
And that, my friend, is how you kill yourself.
You have been murdered by love, by the very same feeling that made you feel worthy, special and beautiful. The very same craze that brought butterflies in your stomach, that compelled true smiles on your face. The same thing that ablaze your soul, the very same notion that made you feel like a better person. The very same thing that breathe in color and energy in your dullness. You have been murdered by the very same thing that brought you to life. Ironic right?
When this happens, I do hope you find a way to bring yourself back to life.
Because he doesn’t and he never will. Ever.
I hope for that substantial time that you’ll finally feel better and be better. The time you decisively realize that no matter how much hardship you’ve been through, it was worth it, not because he was worth it, no.
It was worth it because what you’ve been through was worth it. Because you proved to your own self that you are definitely resilient, that you are brave enough to open your heart, give it away and let someone hold it without the certitude that they will take responsibility and care for it as you did. That you are valiant enough to grant yourself the freedom to endure something so strong that it had overtaken everything else in your heart, that you are defiant enough to swim that ocean without knowing its depth, its width, knowing only the possibility that you might drown – where you can only breathe in nothing but water, that the air from your lungs could be snatched out and that it might break you into pieces every single day, that you have to fight each day through for a gasp of air. Because that’s all you want, that’s all you need: air.
Lastly, I pray that there will come a time that you will finally have the strength to be the person to bring your own self back to life and see how beautiful you are with your own scars, bruises and holes. That you’ll get a glimpse of how these pieces of affliction and despair had somehow made you an even more beautiful person than you already are.