The reason I am alive today is because the sky is blue.

Isn’t that one of the stupidest things you’ve ever read?

For as far as I can remember, as soon as I knew about dying and death, I wanted it. It evolved from wanting to run away – to get as far away from everything that surrounded me like water against a ship – to being so still in my place – breathing in my surroundings, looking at them with no longer a motive to move from them or run. I accepted everything that was happening and just let it tear me apart.

All of my teenage years are ruined by sadness, to put it broadly. Alone, and now quiet, the boy I used to be was sad and nothing more. Alone, he did not try to pick up his pieces. He did not seek help. He did not try to be okay. He did not stir his black waters.

As I progressed these years, I got older, tougher, and more brave. Bleeding wasn’t enough, and suddenly I was experimenting with other ways. Why? I don’t know why. I don’t know why I hated myself that much, and when I look back, I am reminded of countless reasons – but I will never know which one exactly sent me over the edge. But I got older. Specifically from 15-17, death was in my eyes.

I searched everywhere for life, but it must have been running from me. I lost grip on everything that tightened me to my place here.

People call suicide selfish because those who love you suffer it. What those people don’t realise is that you think of those people all the time. Suicide can come in the form of a quick jump or fall or descent, but that’s not how it works. You go through just how much it would impact your little sister, you think of the brave face your older one will have to put on, you think of your friends who will always wonder why and if they had something to do with it. You think of everyone, and it holds you rooted for a bit. That’s love. But love isn’t as strong as people think. Love breaks. And that’s exactly what depression does. You start realising your little sister will weep and be scarred, but will go on with her life. Your older sister is strong and combined with your little sister, they will pull each other through. Your friends will fall out of love and care, and their paranoia will cease, and you will become nothing but a name that is honoured every year until there is nobody left to remember the date.

There have been so many times when I have been an inch to death. And I always put myself there. But the sky is blue. And on sunny days, the clouds disperse and the strength of the blue is so beautiful. And sometimes the sky is lost to a mass of cloud, and all is wrapped in a grey that calms a headache, and light misty rain falls like a blessing to soothe the hot blood beneath the skin. I could never kill myself, because the sky was too beautiful, and I would miss it too much.