before20
I can't turn this thing off, it keeps following me
- Jan 28, 2025
- 66
On this day eight years ago, when we were both eleven, my close friend killed himself.
He was gay. The first openly gay person I knew, and one of the biggest reasons I came out. He was loud, excitable, full of energy and seemingly so joyful. He loved gymnastics and Yandere Simulator. His death was the first in my life, and the hardest.
It impressed upon me human cruelty at a young age. Two weeks prior, he'd been telling me all about this boy he liked at his middle school and how much they texted. The week prior, he FaceTimed me and I didn't pick up. The next week, he was dead, because that very same boy had been pulling a prank on him, and was bullying him at school.
My psyche was never the same after that. Granted, the timeline is fuzzy, and I was probably already an unnaturally miserable eleven year old, but it sent me deep into a depression I would never wade out of. A short five months later, when I was newly twelve, I made my first and only suicide attempt—for all the good that it did me. It was never going to work; turns out you have to have a will of iron to drown yourself in a bathtub, and well. I was twelve.
That's still the weirdest part to me. He's eleven forever, and I'm 19. It almost feels perverse. He probably had a much brighter future ahead of him than I did. I wonder all the fucking time if I had picked up the call, if I had been a more present friend, if he would still be here today. How tall he would be. If he'd ever grow out of that high-pitched voice. What he would have become; what I would have become. But can I begrudge him, when I want to do the same? When I wish I had just joined him then?
Even weirder is the dissonance between how I feel about my own life ending and how I felt about his—oh, but he was so young, and it was just a matter of circumstance, and he wouldn't have done it if he was being bullied. Well, all that's true. But I'm also young, and there are a lot of things in my life right now that would make a normal person suicidal, and true, maybe I wouldn't want to CTB if my life were different. But we only have the one life. The world isn't different.
I may not agree with it, it may have devastated me, but it wasn't for me. I can only hope he's happy wherever he is.
I went to visit him today, for the first time in years. It will also be the last time I ever visit him. It's a little crazy to wrap my head around. I always wondered how he managed it—how his little eleven year self managed to push past his SI and take his life into his own hands. But then again, he always had more courage than I. Even now.
Whenever things in my life went right and I truly didn't deserve them, I always wondered if that was him watching over me. My own guardian angel. If that's true, he did his best, but I guess he's out of miracles.
On a good day I'm a staunch atheist, but just for you, M, I hope there's an afterlife full of smiles and laughter and throwing knives and cute boys. Maybe I'll even get to see you there.
He was gay. The first openly gay person I knew, and one of the biggest reasons I came out. He was loud, excitable, full of energy and seemingly so joyful. He loved gymnastics and Yandere Simulator. His death was the first in my life, and the hardest.
It impressed upon me human cruelty at a young age. Two weeks prior, he'd been telling me all about this boy he liked at his middle school and how much they texted. The week prior, he FaceTimed me and I didn't pick up. The next week, he was dead, because that very same boy had been pulling a prank on him, and was bullying him at school.
My psyche was never the same after that. Granted, the timeline is fuzzy, and I was probably already an unnaturally miserable eleven year old, but it sent me deep into a depression I would never wade out of. A short five months later, when I was newly twelve, I made my first and only suicide attempt—for all the good that it did me. It was never going to work; turns out you have to have a will of iron to drown yourself in a bathtub, and well. I was twelve.
That's still the weirdest part to me. He's eleven forever, and I'm 19. It almost feels perverse. He probably had a much brighter future ahead of him than I did. I wonder all the fucking time if I had picked up the call, if I had been a more present friend, if he would still be here today. How tall he would be. If he'd ever grow out of that high-pitched voice. What he would have become; what I would have become. But can I begrudge him, when I want to do the same? When I wish I had just joined him then?
Even weirder is the dissonance between how I feel about my own life ending and how I felt about his—oh, but he was so young, and it was just a matter of circumstance, and he wouldn't have done it if he was being bullied. Well, all that's true. But I'm also young, and there are a lot of things in my life right now that would make a normal person suicidal, and true, maybe I wouldn't want to CTB if my life were different. But we only have the one life. The world isn't different.
I may not agree with it, it may have devastated me, but it wasn't for me. I can only hope he's happy wherever he is.
I went to visit him today, for the first time in years. It will also be the last time I ever visit him. It's a little crazy to wrap my head around. I always wondered how he managed it—how his little eleven year self managed to push past his SI and take his life into his own hands. But then again, he always had more courage than I. Even now.
Whenever things in my life went right and I truly didn't deserve them, I always wondered if that was him watching over me. My own guardian angel. If that's true, he did his best, but I guess he's out of miracles.
On a good day I'm a staunch atheist, but just for you, M, I hope there's an afterlife full of smiles and laughter and throwing knives and cute boys. Maybe I'll even get to see you there.
