I have died already.

I am a ghost; a shell.

Imagine it.

They think that they know you.

They think that they can just tell you to brush it off and stop being worried or sad.

They think that you haven't just wished that battling crippling anxiety and depression was that easy.

"Why are you worried? Nothing is wrong. Just stop."

"Don't be sad it's not that hard. You don't have anything that's happening to you."

Your words hurt. Your words kill.

October 9th, 2016 and December 26th, 2012.

These two days are two to be remembered.

All of my worries.

All of my sorrows.

They became more powerful than I. They proved that I am weak.

I stood at the edge of a bridge or window; not just in the literal tense but the figurative sense.

Looking over the ledge I felt my pain leave me; I felt the death threats and the bible thumping silence. I felt the detesting manner from my stepdad silence.

I felt at peace knowing that it could all be over.

At those two moments I think I learned what it meant to be happy.

Happiness is carefree. Happiness is contentment.

Happiness is mutually exclusive from life, but does not mean death.

Or does it?

Growing into the man I am today, I have faced homophobia on many levels. I have faced rape. Not once. Not twice. But for years.

I sleep in the same bed that my humanity was stolen on.

I sleep knowing that every night I punish myself for what I did, but I know it wasn't my fault.

In a way, I'm already dead; but I'm working on becoming alive again.

Your words hurt. They kill.

Your actions kill.

Victims are corpses of the people they used to be.

We struggle everyday to find a purpose and to hold on with everything we have.

We fight crippling depression and anxiety.

We fight because if we don't, death will call us back to our destructive self medication.

We want the world to understand that we are valid.

We want justice and peace for other victims.

We want a country that cares about rape victims and not rapists.

We want to change hearts, but we can only change our own.

We want love and acceptance, not rape jokes and emotional triggers.

I feel him on me. He was the best robber to ever live.

Both of them were.

I am a shell of who I once was, but I am here.

I ask for love.

Dearly.

Gracefully.

Help us.

We will overcome.