Devils advocate

 I almost died; I felt nothing. The anger had dwindled away, the pain was now a dull throb and even the burning in my throat had become numb. I didn’t feel at all like I wanted to die any more but, I didn’t feel much like living either. 

Living is hard. But dying, it’s a whole different thing. 

When you die you're gone, that’s it. Blackness from here on in. You’ll float around, disembodied and hopeless for eternity. And, if you really think about it, eternity is a damned long time.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? We have too much time to think. We are always told to think hard and use our heads but, in reality, it’s dangerous to think. You can think too much and twist yourself into a knot of desperate questions. And these questions eventually have no answers.Sometimes, your thoughts depress you and no matter how much you try, you can’t climb out of it.

 I neither wanted to live because of all the pointlessness to life but, on the other side, because I was alive and I was able to think, I didn’t want to die. Thinking about death is fine, until you go deeper. Then, suddenly, you’re scared. But, what do you do if you are scared to do both?

“What the hell do I say? What can I say? Nothing will make it seem better and I am so sorry;  but that is the long and the short of it. We just have to work through this. You’ll feel better eventually but the desire will never go away. I’m sorry that I can’t say it will all get better.”

You. Another mess, another heartache, another time bomb waiting to go off. So familiar. This was a story I had lived through but you may not be so lucky. You have already made your first attempt but how many are to follow and which will be the one to end it all? It is going to happen, I can tell that much, and there is no point in lying about that. Because no matter how much support or watchful eyes you have; you always found a way. I am no stranger to masks; I can spot them a mile off.