Selfish Death
Selfish Death
By Kanga Liu
~ Just a short little piece I wrote at the top of my head one night about suicide.
The snow bit my face, but I didn't mind the feeling. The snow was my friend today. Anything painful deserved to be my friend today. Anything that distracted me from the pain that I felt in my chest; this sharp, bleeding feeling in my heart, as if someone had butchered open a valve with an ice-cold machete. This feeling that I tried so hard to get rid of, but never had the desire to leave me. It stayed with me... for a whole year.
I tightened the scarf wrapped around my neck and mouth, and trudged through the massive sea of snow that had piled overnight, continuing to pile right this second. My dark indigo jeans were getting soaked up to the knee from the snow, but I kept on walking. Leaving behind a trail with my fat, long, pointy tail. Nothing was going to get in my way right now. Not this snow, not a forty-foot wall, and not even a chasm the size of Alaska.
After a about a good long hour, I did make it. Reading the sign above the rusty, metal gate, I knew for a fact that I had made it. Walking past the open entrance, I made my way up the steep, snow-covered hill.
The bouquet of white flowers safe in my arms.
The journey to the top of the hill was somewhat like a race. A race that didn't matter to me, because I already knew I was up against Olympic gold-medalists... making my efforts hopeless and unnecessary. But reaching the finish line would be an accomplishment nonetheless. The fact that I could even make it to the top would make me feel as if I had achieved something for the first time in my worthless life. My sad, empty life.
At last, I had reached the top of the hill. Using my kangaroo leg muscles, I hopped over dead stumps and fallen trees. By now, the snowflakes were starting to soak through my golden, glittering fur--making it look flat and damp. But I didn't care how I looked today, because the person I was going to be seeing in about a few minutes wouldn't care what I looked like right now... and he never did care what I looked like... because he loved me... and will love me, no matter what.
Finally, after a tiring trek through the woods, I made it. He stood in front of me. So handsome. So amazing, in just about every way possible.
He was perfect.
But he was gone. Like the gust of wind that blew past me, he had come and gone. Evaporated into thin air and disappeared from my life once again.
In front of me, the concrete gravestone sticking out from the pile of snow that surrounded it and pointing toward the heavens stood before me like a welcomed visitor. We were acquaintances at first, but as time went on with the more times I visited it, the gravestone started to feel like a very close friend. A very close friend who knew what I was going through. A very close friend that I could tell anything to. And wouldn't look away, ashamed, or judge me in any way.
Walking up to the slab of stone, I knelt before it and used a free paw to brush off the dirt and snowflakes, revealing a name.
Reading the name under my breath, I couldn't help but feel the tears begin to well up at the corners of my eyes. How I loved saying his name... but now there wasn't a body alive to respond to me whenever I called for it.
The tears started to fall freely, now. I didn't wipe them away. I didn't even care. What did I have to be ashamed about, crying like this? The only thing here was this gravestone, and it was my friend. It didn't mind if I cried. It understood why I cried. It knew how much the kangaroo lying six feet below it--us, right now--meant to me. If only if others would just accept that. If only if others just left us alone, and let us love each other.
He would be here right now with me... and I would not be crying.
Once the last of my tears dropped to the snow below, I set the bouquet of white roses at the base of the gravestone as carefully as I could. Inspecting the gravestone carefully, I could make out the graffiti still etched onto it. I had almost forgotten about those.
The words faggot, and cocksucker, and bitchboy in almost every color of marker and spray paint faintly showed through the snowflakes that covered it. Mostly black, because homophobes tended to hate colors. I knew those words should matter to me. That they should hurt me, and make me sad... and make me angry.
But, they didn't. Those words didn't bother me. Not anymore, that is. Back when I had someone to cry with and cuddle up into a soft, warm bed with, those words would have probably made me angry at the world... and angry with myself for being so different. Not normal, like everyone else.
Now that I knew what happened when I let those words get to me... I don't let them, anymore. I block them out, as if I wear brass armor. Because I am strong like that. I may not be strong physically... but I sure as hell was strong mentally, and emotionally. In a world filled with idiots and judgmental furs, there will always be names I will be called and things done to me just because I am something... something they know nothing about, yet assume about before they even get to know me. But I refuse to let them win.
In the battle of my boyfriend against the idiots, the idiots have won. He let the names get to him, and now he's gone from ending his own life. They may have not been the ones to directly murder him, but they were the reason. It was their fault that he killed himself. It was their fault that I am sad and alone, now.
I promised the gravestone that I would come back in about a week, and that I'd clean it very well, and scrub away those nasty, cold words. With one last final hug, I let go of the gravestone and turned to leave, watching the sky the entire way back home.
Watching him watch me, and praying that he gave me strength whenever I asked for it. I knew I would meet up with him again, someday. Just not anytime, soon. Normal or not, my life was precious to me, and the time I had left on this Earth will be determined by a much greater force, rather than the stupid furs who don't matter to me.
The stupid furs who refused to get to know me first before they started to hate me. And wanted me dead. For that to happen, they'd have to kill me, themselves.
**End**