vanish {

it's 2 am and i can't sleep because i'm too afraid to try. i'm afraid of the dark because there's no distractions. even the ceiling loses its color and all i can make out is the faint outline of the fan. it gets blurrier every year.

once that was gone, all that was left were my thoughts and my thoughts have not been good.

***

i always knew that i would write something like this someday. i started this project as a way for me to express my feelings in a void. trying to put this giant mess of consciousness into a language that won't ever come close to covering its nuance. because while i've read pieces of literature that came close, nothing i ever write can quite capture the feeling of wanting to die. it's complicated. i can try to cover it up with fancy words and metaphors and shit. but something is telling me that this time, it's better to be honest. 

the scariest shit is that i know people will read it when i don't want them to. it's not comfortable talking about these sorts of things. it never has been. and it's especially bad when i'm genuinely not in a depressive mood and the topic comes up. then, i look back at shit like this and wonder why i ever even wrote it. 

but i started this project and titled it "through thick and thin" because that's what this website is supposed to be. a chronicle of my mind through thick and thin. right now, i just think i'm in the thick.

***

i wonder when i stopped living for myself. when every breath and step needed to be dedicated to someone else. when my existence needed to prove itself worthy of love. when i realized that i had no real drive to live, and that i'm really doing it because everyone else wants me to.

because i know that whenever it's my time, i'm going out at my own will. i'll decide when my time comes, whether that's pulling life support or a trigger. i'll run away and vanish or whatever. it wouldn't restore the control i want over my life. but in those last moments i think it would certainly feel like it.

this sort of shit never made sense. the logical part of me knows that there are a billion better ways to use my time. i could be improving myself. i could be finding solutions. i could be getting help from the many friends and family that i have. there are people whose whole job is to talk about this. but i won't find them. the only thing scarier than actually dying is the prospect of having to explain the unexplainable.

there are so many people counting on me. hoping to see me succeed. willing to lend a helping hand if i desperately need it. they remind me of that. and i see their reminders and i'm grateful for it. but it hasn't helped me drive down any roads and sometimes the guardrails and ravines look like easier destinations anyways. because it hurts not being anyone's first choice and not telling anyone about it because i'd bother them and being a burden would be worse than the hurt itself.

***

i still can't imagine the future. it's a fog of uncertainty. i can't picture myself being thirty or forty and having a family and a stable job and whatever. and that scares me because in high school i couldn't picture myself living to eighteen and that's when i realized things were getting really bad.

***

the hardest part is that i don't feel like i have a right to feel this way. there are literal billions of people who would do anything to be in the position that i'm in. to have the opportunities and privileges i do. there are so many people who could run my life way better than i am. and that brings me so much shame because i'm not being grateful enough for the many things that i have. it's sickening. i've met so many people who have it so much worse. people who grew up in shitty households. people who grew up not knowing the comforting love of a family or the security of financial wellness. people who are trapped in bodies that quit way before they should have. people who, by all metrics, should want to disappear way more than i do, and yet they live.

why? i never understood it. i think people have a feeling of sanctity towards their own lives that i just wasn't born with. socrates had a really good thought: why be afraid of death, if you don't know what comes after? fear of the unknown is ignorance. for all we know, eternal happiness could be waiting on the other side. 

death would bring pain to a lot of people. that thought alone stops me sometimes. but i always found that a little weird because dead people can't care about the living anyways.

***

it's on and off these days. at least that's good. it used to be an everyday thing. but if it's only seasonal, then at least i'll have something like a recovery to look forward to. a cancer in remission, you might say.

i know when it comes back though. 

when my appetite disappears.

when i hate myself for failures i haven't even experienced. 

when i start losing friends i can easily reach.

when i stop laughing at my own jokes.

when every night becomes one of those nights.

and when i get afraid of the dark. it reminds me of an ugly cry i once had. i forgot why. but the thing about the dark is that it looks the same everywhere. so i remember it all the same.

***

if by some chance i lose this fight, i hope i'll be food for some pretty flowers.

} 2026.02.09