This is Gospel

TW: suicidal ideation

One... Two, three, four.

Need I count more? Exasperation fully known by my whole body. The number of walls surrounding me that felt like caving in, not exceeding four.

I've been counting for too long that I lost the numbers in my head. Has it been a year already? My eyes are burning from the same scenario I see every day.

White.

White walls, white ceiling and a white floor. Not even a window on sight. Just a door, a piece of white metal that separates me from whatever's out there. Separating me from the fresh air that my lungs so long to breathe, colors to stimulate my eyes to seeing more than one color. Having been here for too long, I've lost all energy to move. The willingness to get up and reach the tray of food waiting for me by the door is gone. Don't get me wrong. The food's not bad, but it's not good either. Just a tray to keep me breathing 'til next morning. I've been doing nothing but sleep and rest for as long as I can remember but I felt as though I've been drained of all the energy I could muster.

I felt dead.

A huff escapes my mouth in an attempt into expressing something other than desperation and melancholy. I felt more dead being alive. Breathing became labor for me more than a necessity and blinking my eyes is a task to keep my eyes hydrated. In simplified terms, it pains me to be alive.

Having no sense of time other than receiving food at lunch and dinner, the lights also die at midnight, I think. I've lost track of everything. Date, time and space. I sometimes would bump into the walls, not being able to distinguish anything from the room's brightness.

At some point, I could feel her come inside the room. When the lights and my eyes are shut close, I would feel the prick of a needle on my neck as the contents of the syringe drags me to temporary utopia.

Deep sleep.

The next day, I would wake up to a cleaner room. The walls scrubbed off of anything I purposely and accidentally put on. The floor, rid of grease and marks. I was back at it again, day one. But I know it's not. I know time didn't repeat itself. The fresh scars left on my skin remained and my utensils were taken away.

I thought I found my way out, but that was just me hoping to make it out of here. Being in a room used to have me in comfort knowing the privacy that it gave, but being in this particular room stripped me of anything else other than discomfort. I felt monitored and watched, she never goes away. Those eyes that peak through the door at night, full of malice and cunning intent.

But it was better than nothing.

It was better than to forget what another human looks like. How they move and breathe. Because honestly? I don't feel human anymore, I felt like a thing. Void of everything but the yearn for escape.

Even if escape meant death.

It was those eyes. Those damn eyes that I could never learn to hate. Remembering back, it was a few years ago, I should guess, when I met her. She was sitting all alone in a cafe, hands eagerly scratching the tip of lead on paper, trying to create something. She had earphones on, blocking out the world outside her space. Then those eyes...

They snapped at me the moment I took one of her ear buds and listened to it. "I thought I knew the song... Pretty good music ain't it?", sparking up a conversation. I tried to hold her gaze, but it was her gaze that held me in place. Chills going down my back, she was trouble. I took the bud off and returned it to her. Giving her a sheepish grin, trying to escape the suffocating aura until-

"Keep it", two words, she mumbled and I could breathe again. I took it and settled down beside her. She looked at me again, showing me a subtle, sweet smile.

Oh, she was trouble.

Not long after, our names were exchanged and names later on turned into nicknames. It was a smooth transition from hearing, "Sorry to keep you waiting", into, "Hello love, welcome home". There wasn't any reason to hold back. I tossed and turned on my bed trying to figure out the best way to propose to her. Would a music player be the sentiment for the two of us? A necklace in the form of earphones? I can faintly remember the heavy feeling of euphoria thinking about the times of wanting to make her mine.

Until one day, I popped it. The question was in the air and her eyes was polished with gloss. "Will you marry me?", These four words could change a lot in a person's life. Having a person acknowledge that they would want to spend the rest of their life with you is no joke. It was a question full of dedication and commitment.

A trap.

But it wasn't those four words for me, not at all, that turned my world upside down. Words that paralyzed me into rethinking everything I ever thought I knew. It was that gaze again. That sinister, emotionless gaze that seemed unfit with your brows that rose up in concern and your lips curling into a smirk.

“Would you die for me?”, the words came out of her mouth in a voice both familiar and foreign to my ears.

Then her question. "Yes", I answered. It was a love story cliché. In the span of my lifetime, I might've heard them a lot of times.

When Bruno Mars would swear his undying love by giving away his life on his lyrics, “But darling I’d still catch a grenade for you”.

When the most known love story written in playwright, held two teenagers who died for each other in the name of love,

“The suicide of Romeo and Juliet”.

In history books where they held discussions on whether the reason for Cleopatra's death was really love, “Cleopatra died for love”.

Indeed.

In music, stories and even in history, people have put power in romanticizing dying in the name of love.

But her next words made me realize that dying isn’t the hardest way to prove your adoration to someone. Dying would be a more preferable choice in turn for what she asked next. The same amount of words, yet ever so horrifying as it left her mouth.

“Would you live for me?”

In a world that’s very cruel and sudden, would I be willing to go through everything that the future holds? The suffering that awaits me? No. The scars that mark my wrists and neck could answer a lot. Dying is the easiest way for me to escape. To be able to endure life, just to be with her? To be able to abandon death for her. If not love, then what is?

Her eyes held pools of water like glass, but it was mine that poured out. My lips trembled as I fell on my knees weak. Being too overwhelmed, the truth went past my lips. "N-no", having nowhere to escape to and never having the option of seeking solace in death, is something a suicidal 24 year old could never give up.

There it was again.

The suffocating aura that held around my neck and I looked up. Her face contorted into betrayal and disappointment.  I tried apologizing, taking my answer back and giving her what she wanted to hear. Did I not love her enough?

She held me down, embracing me in her warmth, choking my breath away.

My airway entrapped in her hands, her face smiling with sadness.

"Don't worry my love... I'll make you live... I'll make you live... ", her words turning into nothing as the world turned black.

From black to white, we've come to where we are now. Me lying in the middle of the room, dozed with a lethal amount of morphine that I hid over the times that I asked one. Acting as though my head was hurting.

A sliver of hope creeps into my chest as I felt more drowsy by the time, tears falling down the sides of my face onto the floor. Chuckles emerging silently as if the walls have ears.

This is it.

The rest I've been seeking for my whole lifetime...

My consciousness slowly slipping away.

I'm free.

But then I saw her.

The door inching open and her form moving closer.

"Happy Anniversary, my love"

No... Please stop...

Let me die...

Let me die for you...