“Taking your own life. Interesting expression, taking it from who? Once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everyone else. Your life is not

your own, so keep your hands off it.”

My family would cry, and so would my friends, but would anyone be so bothered by the
lack of my existence that they couldn’t comprehend being a human being without me? I feel that
way about everyone in my life, and I don’t know if that is reciprocated. I wonder if anyone in my
life would fall onto their own sword if I had killed myself or died in some tragic accident. There
is a story where a young boy and a young girl find themselves being pulled away from their love
by their families. As they attempt to find a way to fulfill their need and their want for each other,
in a tragic event of miscommunication and misunderstanding, one of the lovers believes their
true love has died and throws themselves into death’s hands because they can’t bear the thought
of continuing life without them. When the other finds them, lying dead on the ground, they also
fall into the welcoming arms of death. Out of true love.

You may believe I am talking about the famous Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet, but I
do not want to be as common as the classic story every ninth grader has to read in their English
class but as unknown and rare as the Babylonian myth of Thisbe and Pyramus. I want the world
to be shocked by the revelation of the tale of love, by the originality of our story, by the true fate
that leads us to each other, and by the inevitable tragedy of our love.

I know for a fact that if I learned that someone I love was dead, I would, without second
thought, throw myself onto my own sword. Would anyone do that for me? If I died in a fatal
crash, threw myself off a cliff, or bit the bullet, would anyone be in so much agony that they
throw themselves on their own sword? Maybe that is why I have become so cautious with my
life. Even though I am reckless and careless, I still find myself being ever so careful. Maybe that
is because I value the people I love more than I do myself. Death doesn’t scare me, but the deaths
of those I love cause me more turmoil than is probably healthy. Death is inevitable, but I believe
those around me are invincible. Never to die and live on as long as I do. Although, when I let my
mind wander, I begin to think, “Would anyone throw themselves on their own sword for me?
Would my loss in someone’s life cause them to take their own?” Maybe this is why I do not
believe in true love. Maybe this is why I spend all of my time caring for others. To give me
purpose so they have a reason to continue, so they feel loved, and so they do not have the need to
throw themselves on a sword, to drink poison, or even to walk into oncoming traffic. Maybe, just
maybe, I only expose my kindness and my passion to find my own true love.

Why can I not get the same in return? Why can I not have someone fall onto their own
sword for me? Why can not I have someone who would be in agony at the loss of me? Where do
I find myself experiencing this level of love? The kind of love that only exists in books and tales
In mythology. These questions flow in my head like hundreds of thousands of trains, narrowly
missing each other as they pass in a never-ending cycle of turmoil. Maybe, when our story
becomes a myth, then I will be able to experience true love at its finest. In its purity, in its fear,
and in its hope. When I find my true love, my Pyramus, I will find clarity in myself.

I was naive. I believed that love only exists in fairy tales and on movie screens. Years
later, I found my person. He was the sun, but I was the moon. The moon is the natural satellite of
Earth, the star-crossed lover of the sun. Many people love to be in the sun; even I once envied the
sunshine, the brightness that fell over every city in beautiful arrays of multi-colored skies. I
always knew I was the moon. Even in the gut-wrenching pain of loneliness that suffocated me
with every tiptoe, every breath, every movement, I had always loved myself as the moon. He was
the sun. A blinding force; even though we all know the sun always rises, you seem to never
expect how bright they can be. The moon is a representative for the people reading in coffee
shops: the crystal-obsessed beauties, the psychics, the wanderers, the ambitious, the brave, the
ones who know the right answer in their class but are too scared to raise their hands in fear of
being told they are wrong. They are always revolving, evolving, and changing. The people who
no one realizes have the strength to pull the tide, create tsunamis, and cause natural disasters.
Being unexpected brought me peace. Until my Pyramus. I envied him. I envied the predictability
and the brightness that were shown through his smile and gleaming eyes, but that envy
developed into love. An undying and unconditional love that could not be broken, even in death.

Death does not just mean the end of a life. It could be the ending of a story, a tale, or a
recital. The grief I felt for him was stronger than any emotion I believed I could feel. This death
was more meaningful than our story or our love. Stronger than the hidden story behind the
constellation of Leo. This is not a story for the faint of heart. This is a story for survivors, for the
admirers, for the ones always searching for deeper meaning. He built museums in me that I only
saw as empty hallways. Light in my deepest, darkest fears. He was the sun to my moon.

But much to your surprise, my audience, this is not a story of true love. These two
nameless characters do not depict true love at all. This is not what love is. Yes, love is whatever
you believe it to be. Love is the hand of God to the temptation of the Devil. Love is expanding
and evolving every day in so many people, but this is the story of a young girl who is lost in the
idea of finding true love until she meets another young boy who tarnishes what true love is in her
innocent eyes. True love is not about finding someone who would die for you. It is about finding
someone who would live for you, as well as making you want to live for yourself.