Is suicide my final tide?
I have been falling for days now; everything seems surreal. I told Kennedy good night just yesterday, only to wake up to nothing but silence and an empty ache where he used to stay. The place he occupies in my heart is bare as I throw his ashes into the river for the wind to guide his spirit home. May his gentle soul rest in peace.
I squeezed him too tight; I loved him too much; it’s all my fault he’s gone; he was way too young. God, if this is your idea of punishment for all those times I let myself go by invoking the devil and his little friend sin, please take me and not Kennedy.
They say love is the reason why we go on, why we believe, and why we continue to exist; they say it’s the reason for your sanity. Now that he’s gone, so are my sanity and my peace.
He came into my life and swept me off my feet. As the younger brother I never knew I wanted until he arrived, I felt the destination was complete.
Dad worked over seas, and mom was a fashion queen, too busy on the runway to really see; the flashes were always too bright; she had learned to look but not see; see us grow into better versions of ourselves; and rejoice in all my accomplishments.
What do you gift a girl who wants nothing but the treasure that lives overseas and for eyes that work to finally see? Simple: a brother called Kennedy.
He came into my life and resided in the center of it. I finally had somebody—my treasure—all mine; he was cherished. He was my everything.
I don’t think I ever found myself; I lived to make sure Kennedy could breathe. It’s not that I didn’t love myself; it’s not that I didn’t appreciate the efforts of Mom and Dad; I wasn’t an overly protective sister.
It’s just that I started to see too much of my pain in his eyes; he was turning into me. Absent-minded with a look of dread, always waiting for doom that lurked behind the walls to finally burst out of their cage and consume everything.
He kept to himself, rarely spoke, and barely slept without the help of those little pills I started taking when I was ten. Always afraid, never at ease, always weary of the demons within. I loved him so much because he was me. We found sanctuary in the company of one another, and when I was with him, I was complete; we both were. I could tell him anything, and he me.
The time I dreaded the most had come; I had to leave him for the higher institution, leave him to his advances, and to a mother who would never truly see her son turn out to be the great man he was destined to be, a father whose expectations were over the top; after all, to whom much is given, much is expected of him.
If I had known that would be his undoing, I would never have let him leave my side. You see, when you love someone too much, they start to suffocate; they grow accustomed to the pain, and they can’t breathe, so they wither away.
Maybe if I had loved him a little bit more, I would never have abandoned him in a house way too big and with a mind that has never known peace.
When I told him good night for the last time, I saw the troubled look in his eyes. I should have known that although we are the same person, we have different souls. I should never have let him go into the unknown. He died of an overdose.
So as I fall into the oblivion of my dreams, this peaceful sleep given to me by pills, in the serene environment where I spread his ash, I hope the wind blows me towards the tides that guarantee everlasting peace. As my spirit is guided home to Kennedy, may my troubled soul rest in peace.
Mum, Dad, I’m not sorry. I guess if you look, you won’t have to see because there’ll be no one left…
A short story. Check up on your friend’s and love one’s. Always check on them with words of encouragement.
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