Jamey Rodemeyer. 14 years of age.
Jacob Rogers. 18 years of age.
Seth Walsh. 13 years of age.
Asher Brown. 13 years of age.
Eden Wormer. 14 years of age.
And so many more, over the years and through the ages. Gone too soon. They took their own lives, driven to suicide by hatred, by neglect and feeling as though they would never fit in.
Suicide is on the rise because the more time that passes, the more one realises that love and acceptance are becoming rarer and rarer in society. Bullies run rampant. The 'mongers' - the mongers of hate, and war, and fear - roam the streets and the cyberworld, waiting. Waiting to strike and then disappear, anonymous and uncaring.
Why? Why do we sacrifice souls of beauty, people of worth? And we do. We do sacrifice them. We sacrifice living beings with hearts and emotion, solely for our own agendas - or our own fear of taking a stand, taking their hand, and protecting them whatever the costs. We betray them to the abyss of agony, in an act of self-preservation.
We allow men, women, and children to die - because we are afraid. Afraid to love unconditionally, afraid to accept them, flaws and all. Afraid to get too close.
Because if we had let them get too close, what if they had dragged us down with them? What if their dirt and grime had brushed off on us and turned us - horror of horrors - into them? We could not allow ourselves to get close enough for that to happen... to have their dirt and grime mingle with the dirt and grime we ourselves already carry.
Don't you see? Can't you understand?
It was not only their hand that brought them to the next life. We - the fellow humans, the fellow souls - played our own parts. We did nothing to stop it. In some cases, we may have even caused it to happen.
This needs to stop.
We need to learn to love, to care, to feel. Apathetic is a pathetic way to be, and yet many who do not actively try to hurt others make it no better with their apathy.
Imagine a world where love reigned - a perfect ideal, where love replaced all pain, no exceptions. There would be no war; there would be no bullying; there would be no murders. Because everyone would love one another, and by extension want the best for every person they came across.
How many more innocents must die before we as a species realise that as long as hate, bigotry, fear, and superiority rule, there will be no peace? No hope for a gentle-minded world, no hope for the rescue of our children from depression, bullying, and anxiety.
How many more times will the Leelahs and Seths and Edens of this world have to die by their hands - and by extension our own - before we begin to change?
How many beautiful souls must we lose before it all becomes clear and we begin to hold them dear?
Please.
No more.
No more of this. No more pain, no more neglect, no more attacks hidden behind veils of sweetness-tinged judgement.
No more suicides, brought on by feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness.
No more deaths. Please, God, I beg you, no more. No more executions by the barrage of stones from the falsely righteous, justified by cries of 'sinner, foul sinner!'. No more worn and weary hearts pleading for Death to take them away from the day-to-day struggles of abandonment, cruelty, and unbelonging. No more light-filled souls shattered into shards of darkness.
No more, my God, I beseech thee.
No more.
Please... no more.
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