To those who say that suicide is for cowards, I say this:

They always ask me,
“Any history of mental illness in the family?”
Like it’s a checkbox. Like it’s a gene you can switch off
if you marry someone with better coping skills.

No.
Yes.
I mean
I’m not crying because I miss someone,
I’m not heartbroken.
I didn’t just lose my job or get dumped or forget to eat lunch.
This isn’t a bad day. This is a brain thing.
This is a chemical cocktail shaken not stirred,
this is serotonin doing the Harlem Shake in my skull,
this is don’t tell me to cheer up,
this is I can’t help it,
this is I would if I could but I can’t, so I’m stuck in this loop again.

It starts with a whisper.
Not a voice. A twitch. A misplaced fear.
It doesn’t knock. It intrudes.
It doesn’t wait for an invitation—it is the host.

And it never gets easier with age.
People think you grow out of this.
No.
You grow into it.
You get better at faking.
You get better at lying.
You get better at saying,
“I’m fine”
with a noose around your ribcage.

It is biochemical.
It is bed-bound.
It is pushing away everyone who reaches for me,
like don’t touch me, I’m radioactive,
like you’ll burn if you get too close.

My brain whispers:
You’re broken.
And I believe it.
It says:
They can’t fix you.
And I build a religion on that truth.
I can’t see other perspectives because the lens is cracked.
I carry my past like a haunted house
that charges me rent to live inside my own head.

Welcome to the carnival.
Step right up!
Ride the panic coaster!
One second I’m on top of the world,
the next I’m six feet beneath it.
Guess the weight of my emotional baggage—
winner gets a lifetime of therapy bills and half a prescription.

This isn’t dramatic.
This isn’t a cry for attention.
It’s a cry for help.
For hope.
For something better than this.

I’ve read medication labels like they were ancient spells.
Like maybe this time, the magic will work.
Maybe this time I’ll teleport out of the darkness.
Maybe this time I won’t need to explain
that this isn’t weakness.
This is survival.
This is fight or flight,
but I’ve been flying for years and I’m out of fuel.

You want to call me a coward?

No.
Cowards don’t get out of bed when the world is a monster.
Cowards don’t dance with danger
without a harness, without a net, screaming into the void
and daring it to scream back.
Cowards don’t live every day
fighting a voice that says: end it.

I am not a coward.
I am a war zone.
I am still here.

That. That is courage.