We are so fixated on dying, the fear of it, that our lives slip away. Maybe you're tired and decide not to go to the new writing group on campus, bail on the coffee date with a co-worker, don't call your grandparents back after your birthday. Things become more effort, and you are so unable to rest.

Humanity's ending would, and most likely will be, tragic. I ache at all the lost art, the desperate energy of creating something beautiful, and being brave enough to share it with the world. But I do not think I would fight to save our human race for its own sake.

Humans can think about thinking; we parse our minds into categories, standards, stipulations, possibilities; other creatures don't do that. I value us for our ability to speak about sunshine, the sweetness of fresh fruit, the gentle softness of a snowy evening when the moon is full and haloed in light.

And yet, I want to see us fighting for the world in its entirety. We as people who contemplate morality, the future, hopes, dreams, and regrets owe it to the other miraculous things on Earth to save them too.

Once, I laid in bed, head pounding, heart tight, pills heavy in my hand. I did not die, but I wanted to. I did not love myself enough to stay. I did not care that I would be gone. I knew others would miss me, but i hated myself more.

It's been almost three years since then, and today I am awake instead of paralyzed by all the thoughts in my head. I am writing, and I am thinking. The world is still going to be beautiful if humans are no longer around to see it.

Allusion, metaphor, retrospect would be gone yes, but the sunlight, the fruit, the snow, and the moon would all still be here. Some could argue that they would be better off if we were gone since we have been so rough with our home.

Isolation does no one any good. Hiding from your fears give them power over you. The thought that confiding in someone is weak is wrong. We are stronger together, the world needs us to do better.

I know logically one day I will die; I do not know what happens after that. I choose to let that fear go; I can spend my energy somewhere else. I can't stop death, but i can do my best to make this world kinder than I found it.

I haven't found freedom in the acknowledgement of my own eventual death. It is still a weight that pulls me down and reminds me of hours, days, weeks, and months culminating into years where I could not leave my bed.

I did not expect perfection, or for nothing to hurt ever again. I was not trying to take my life for granted; I did not mean to push away people I love.

My mother asked "What happened to you? You weren't scared of anything growing up."

I stayed on the edges of groups and friends because getting to know someone was easy. I'm a good listener. If I gave advice or laughed at their silly stories I was helping. If I was careful with my words I would never have to share anything too personal.

"I learned how to lie." I told my mother while we sat on the couch. "Maybe I didn't notice every time i did it. But I spoke well, was polite, could make jokes. I did the bare minimum for socializing."

At 12 my minister asked me and a group of friends who was the person we trusted the most. A best friend, a grandmother, an aunt, a father. I had no answer.

I compartmentalized everything. I never needed the world to be perfect. I had to be, so I could leave the world and my loved ones better than I found them.

"You used to stand up to the jerks." My mother said in a tired voice. "Now you're just sitting here, wallowing. I don't want to make you upset, but, I hate watching you do this to yourself."

Death is something I ran to because I did not love myself enough to stay. I never doubted that others would mourn and miss me. But, my mind was sick enough to believe that I was not worth fighting for.

"Sometimes I hate that I'm still alive. Healing is hard. I know it's good. I've done more in the past year and a half, in the last six months, than I have since high school. I'm proud of that. I know I've been having bad days."

She took my hand and squeezed. "We're so happy you're around. We're happy you're at the house. I just want more for you."

If I hold myself perfectly still. If I always answer "Yes, okay, I'm fine, that's good." I won't have to think. I won't have to change. I won't get hurt. I'll just stop, and then maybe this irrational fear will go away.

Emotions are never that simple. I could spend days looking back on all the missed oppurtunities and people i never got to know. But that won't solve anything. I'd just be hiding in the guilt, punishing myself for things no one else has ever criticized me for.

I can be my own worst enemy. I trap myself in the What If, in the COuld Have, SHould Have, WOuld Have, all the time. It's not doing anyone any good.

There will never be a last fall. There will never be a time where I am free from doubts and insecurity. But, there may be a time when death isn't something wrapped in the memories of pills, alcohol, and cuts on my hands.

"I'm trying." I told my mother. "I promise I am trying, and thank you for letting me do that in a safe place. I can't be that kid again, but hopefully one day I'll be a good adult."

[

Everything I say will be an assumption. There is no way of getting around it. Unless, that is, I was to leave you alone, and say nothing.

But, that would defeat the point of this exercise.

I lay in the grass, spread-eagled atop the damp earth, and you are standing at your window. Indistinct, and silent.

I snap open the can, hear the hiss of carbonation, and muster the energy to give you a Nod.

This beer tastes like dirt, flecked with Salt and new-grown leaves. There's the tiniest sweetness in the back of my throat as I swallow, the tiniest of Hopes.

Birds flutter overhead; they flit from branch to branch in the bushes and trees. Their music helps me pass the time as I gaze up at you.

Crotchedy New Englanders make me laugh. Their stubborn refusal to admit they care about puppies, flowers, their families, or themselves keep me watching.

They don't need fixing; Neither do You.

I wonder if you and your sister scrounged through spring time mud, searching for fiddleheads. I wonder if you cupped the uncurled ferns in your hand before letting them plunk into a bucket at your feet.

Rain patters down across my face. The water trickles down my cheeks like it slides down your window pane. Lightning Screams through the Darkling sky as I take another swallow.

It might just be the memory of light flashing behind my eyes, but you might be smiling. Maybe.

"Who was it for?" I want to ask. "How did it help you?" I take another swallow.

Your skeletal hand traces along the glass as the rain comes down in sheets. The birds have gone Quiet, the only sound is the water tapping against the Metal of the can.

"I want the entire world to read my words." I say to the raging storm, to your ever-distant expression. "What do you think of that?"

Your eyes are dark shadows in the gloom. The sodden earth pulls at me, and I know I must be going soon. I fear all I've done is bother you.

But, the Last Gulp is full of wood and sunshine. Even in the Dregs there is that tiny bit of sweetness, tiny bit of hope.

We will never speak. I will never know how you felt when they published your poetry. I will never know.

You step away from the window, the rain has slowed, and I crush the can in my fist. "I must Make my Own choices." I say sitting up, the wet earth clinging to my clothes.

I won't ever get to know you the way I want, I may always feel guilty that they shared your words wit the world.

At least I had this dream, this surreal comfort in knowing that you did exist. I hear the birdsong Emily, I taste the Earth, and perhaps We will dream again.

I cannot decide if one way of living is better than another, because I have no point of reference. But, what I can say is that for me, a silent world, would be a difficult place.

I weighed less than two pounds when I was born. I was as long as a ball point pen, and near as skinny. My father could literally hold me in the palm of his hand, and the first time he tried the breathing tube connected to my nose fell out. It is, without any hubris, truly a miracle that I have lived to adulthood.

There is a spectrum to blindness, and although I use the word blind to describe myself when people ask, that does not mean I see nothing. There is the purple tint to an autumn sky, the points of my German Shepherd's ears as she tilts her head, and the blurry outlines of my friends.

But, so much of that world that I can still see is augmented by taste, touch, and sound. I could no longer hear smiles, the sound of cars rumbling down the street, or listen to my favorite poets doing Spoken Word.

To have a silent world would not be a bad life, but it would most definitely be different. And, I am happy for now to have it be only a writing prompt, a class discussion, or something my hipster friends and I can discuss over tea.

"Listen close." I say

With only myself to hear.

"There is more than this."

Breathing can be a struggle,

My hands ache and clench,

Everything could-- No, would end.

And yet I reach out

To the world beyond my door,

And I do not die.

"Listen close." I say

With all of the world to hear.

"Despite you, I live."