Chapter 1:

Something I Loved More

I took a deep breath, then stepped out from the top of the chair.

I felt a jolt, but it was not enough.

The weight of everything was pulling me down.

That deep breath I took was trapped within my chest.

I waited for an embrace.

They were supposed to pull me down to them, that specter, always standing in the corner. That spirit with a beautiful appearance, though I have never seen them clearly. That ghost that others told me to avoid.

That being called “Death.”

Death, or Thanatos, had always entranced me. It started as a curiosity. I assumed part of it was from a refusal of others to explain what that figure was, but I came to realize that many could not see it. They did not understand, being people who were driven by a desire for life.

So, I came to realize this being I saw was something unique to me.

I was enthralled with such an idea.

But I also came to realize something else.

“I want you to know that I love you.”

A friend told me that today.

Naturally, that friend wasn’t the first.

Parents, family, friends that had come and left, those I know now, all bestow me with love.

Every time, I smile and say, “I love you too.”

And when that happens, it feels like a rope is tied to me, and it pulls me back, away from that specter of death.

For the second I think “there’s something else I love,” I am reminded of those who tied those ropes, like leashes, to me one after another, with those words and their assertions of love. I’m denying it, my existence, to their affections.

But are they not denying the affection I have for that specter?

When I grew tired at the end of the day, the pressures of sucking up to the idea of love weighing on my mind, I lay sleepless in bed.

I should just end it.

I’m not cut out for this.

Thanatos beckons me.

Then the words “I love you” echo in my mind.

And I start to feel the leashes tied to me pulling on my neck.

It’s not that I don’t want their love.

I’ve lived every day hoping that one day their affections would save me from that specter, that I would find the light that was supposed to always exist within me. I laughed with them, I spent time with them, I told them stories, I engaged in idle conversation.

And to me, always excluded, is Thanatos.

They seem lonely.

I’ve never thought there was much here for me, so maybe I should go join them.

“Just live anyway,” I’ve been told as I try to express this. But they don’t understand.

That’s cruel to Thanatos, who wishes for some company.

“You should live because I love you,” they’d say. “I’ll miss you once you’re gone.”

As I lay in the dark, hyperventilating, clawing at my hair as though that will tear me away from the pain of life, Thanatos steps a little closer.

When I close my eyes, it almost feels like a hand brushes across my back.

“Won’t you come with me? I can save you.”

The voice is soft. I had long fallen in love with its calming resonance.

“I should, but,” I’d choke out between sobs, “they love me.”

And I’d feel the leashes on my neck pulling me away from Thanatos yet again.

I’ve pondered many times how to save myself.

How to make them untie those leashes, and free me of their love.

How to embrace Thanatos without causing pain.

I wish I could fall in the ocean and be dragged out of sight, never to be found, to never have it be known, only swaying in the waves that were the cold arms of death.

I wish for an accident to happen, to push me straight to death without it being my fault.

I want to run off a building; straight into the embrace of death, without a care as to who may be below.

I want to be selfish and embrace that love I feel more than that of anyone else’s— that of Thanatos.

Though, once again, a friend told me.

“I love you.”

Please don’t.

“I love you.”

Don’t.

“I love you.”

These leashes around my neck only drag me away from my feelings. So please.

“I love you.”

Stop.