Courage - not quite the cowardly dog.

It takes a lot of courage to kill yourself.

Immense courage to pick up that blade and run it across your skin experimentally, to feel the coolness of the metal against the soft warmth of your skin. Intense concentration, to cut and not pull back at that first stinging pain. Inner strength and strongest of will powers, to let the warm, still beating liquid jump out of that little cut in little jerks. It takes a lot of courage to hold that hand under running water.

But courage fades and the survival instinct kicks in. As you watch yourself helplessly dying, too weak to do anything about it, you remember all the reasons why you want to be alive. Your favourite ice-cream flavour, your favourite dress...the smallest things are the first to come to mind. It's human nature - we're materialistic. And just before you pass out, you think of the one you love. At the last moment, you utter a silent cry, the single, lone tear falling to the cold, cold floor, reaching out in desperation for anything, anyone, to save you. And then your body hits the floor, warmth ebbing out through that small cut.

It's not easy. Lying there, wanting to live, thinking of the people you love, the people that love you, thinking of all the things you've always wanted to do, all the risks you wanted to take. Thinking of the one person you know would have done anything to stop you.

It takes a lot of courage to kill yourself.

So what if you're not killing yourself? What if you're dying anyway? What do you say, how do you react, when your doctor looks you in the eye and tells you that you have cancer? Do you cry? Do you think of the small things? Do you think of the people you love, the people that love you? The people you wished loved you? Do you think of that one person, and wonder what he was doing right then?

I have cancer. I could be dying. Why? I have so much to do. I have a world to change. I have to tell him I love him. Will he cry if I die? Will anyone remember me after I'm gone? Have I left my mark?

And then there's the darkness that the mind puts you into. You blank out. The mind cannot handle it. You numbly listen to the doctor who goes on endlessly about hope, about god, about faith, about chemotherapy. You nod, smile, and walk out of the room, suddenly feeling all alone, helplessly watching yourself die.

The tear falls, crying out in desperation to be heard. But you wipe it away, put on that smile again, and walk out, head held high. Nurses whisper behind you, admiring your strength. All you want to do is turn around and tell them the truth; that you're not strong, that you're scared as hell of death, that you don't want to die, that you don't now how to deal with this. But you just walk on, pretending not to have heard them.

For weeks you're put through immense pain. Your lustrous hair thins, your skin loses its glow. You fall sick more often, bruise and injure easily. And the puking. You never know when it comes, you lock yourself in your room because you're too afraid to go outside. You read your favourite book, watch a movie, a comedy series, do some research. You battle hopelessness every second of the way, determined to not become another story that people read and forget. You fight. For what? For nothing. For yourself. You fight because you know you deserve a second chance. Because you want to go back and tell him what you should have told him a long time ago.

You fight.

The battle is long, it's tiring, and it takes everything from you. It leaves you broken from within. The only things you have left to build everything again is a small amount of courage, will power and inner strength. Piece by piece, you gather, collect, mend. Building new walls, reinforced by experience, working studiously, night and day, one step at a time; small, tiny steps. It never ends. On some days fear roams free, and you hide in the rubble, sobbing silent tears to yourself, all alone. On some days, you can't remember what you're fighting to save. On other days, you can't remember what it was that you wanted to live so badly for. On other days, you find yourself starting to give up because the task is too daunting for one person, too personal to be shared with any other.

Courage, will power, and inner strength.

It takes a lot of courage to save yourself.