Title: Glow (also know as 'When The Ties No Longer Bind', 'Tied', or 'Ties')
Author: Broken Music Box
Rating: PG
Summery: Malik's thoughts on suicide, friendship and the way he smiles.
A/N: This is from Malik's POV. Also, this was not written as a piece of fanfiction. This is directly from my head onto the screen. It's here because I don't know what else to do with it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh. I wouldn't be here if I did.

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Have you ever noticed how life, when you think about it, seems so pathetic? Our little consciousnesses, in our little groups, fighting our little fights. It's all so small. Insignificant. If we died, it wouldn't make one ripple. Would god mourn? Apart from those we have 'touched', bound to ourselves, we could go and no one would blink.

We gather people around us. Those who have traits we would like to have or are opposites of us. I am dark, you are light. I am guilty, you are innocent. I am dying. You are dying. I want to breathe, but I can't seem to find the air. So I am dying. And I don't know why you are dying, just that you are. Just like me.

The harder they bang on my barriers, shields and walls, the harder I smile. Until it becomes a maniacal grin that startles them into retreat, if only for a second. Then they come again- hammering on my mind, trying to take me down with them.

Have you ever wondered what would happen after your death? Your suicide? Think about it. Everyone would cry for a day or two. They would talk to people who have no idea of who you were, or what you were, and cry some more. Then the one's you bound to yourself would stand, shake off the ties you tied to them, and keep walking.

But that little bit of light would have gone- vanished. Once someone dies that you knew, everything changes. Everything becomes that little bit darker. Some people thrive in the dark. Others wilt like a plant without the sun. And that's what it really is- lack of light. Only the people who were born with that little bit of darkness tucked away somewhere in their hearts and minds survival being thrown in the deep end of your shadows.

Say that word out loud- suicide. Suicide. Suicide. Just imagine the blade cutting deep into your wrist, letting the blood flow. Imagine stepping in front of a bus and knowing, for one glorious second, that you're free. You can fly. You don't have to worry about anything else but you for once.

Glow. Glow, glow, glow. Glow. That word- glow. That's what everyone has. But by the time you meet people, it can be stepped on, crushed, trampled and generally murdered. Mistreated. Kicked into submission and thrown into a blindingly bright corner. A person's 'glow' is that light that surrounds them. That happy, cheerful, sunny defence mechanism that is triggered every time you come to close to knowing what is inside their head. Ever watched someone for a few minutes, then when they see you're looking, they crack a joke or grin at you, breaking the concentration you had that had been solely focused on them?

The bright lights beckon me. Do they beckon you too? Does the outside world call to you as it does to me? I don't want to be here. I want to be there. Or there. Or even there, with another language I don't understand.

I hate the mundane things they say. 'Are you alright?', 'Are you okay?'. 'Did you remember to do your homework?', 'Did you finish this?'. No. Don't ask me that. Don't ask me if my sieve like brain remembered to record the list of things other people want me to do. Ask me if I went for a walk in the rain so I could think, ask me if I ran until I felt I would die simply so I could feel that kind of release. Don't ask me if I'm alright or okay. 'Alright', 'okay' and 'normal' are words people use to make other people feel bad. We're all weird. We're all unique. We're all god damn not okay. We never were. We were born not okay.

That is what they are trying to do to us. It's their goal. Their goal is to force us into the mould they have constructed and make us stay there until we are their image of perfect. Why should we conform to society's stereo type of a person? A 'good' person has a job. A family. A spouse, kids. A house, car and they know where they'll come home to each day. A 'bad' person has no job, no family. No house, car and doesn't know where they'll be tomorrow.

What they don't understand is that our death may be the last freedom we have left for ourselves. It is the last thing we have for ourselves. It's our life. Our existence. Ever felt for that one split second that you weren't you, but someone looking at you, judging you? It's not a nice feeling. You know why? We see what they see. Someone not perfect. Flawed. Someone not like them. We don't see what we know for a moment. It's kinda like having the ground snatched from under your feet.

When the tie no longer binds. When the ties to reality no longer binds, you're free. But there is always at least one tie left. And by the time you've cut that tie, there is one or two more to hold you in place. It never ends. What you need to know is drink in someone else's deadly poison and float on their knowing for a while. See the world from their bubble. Like a vacation. When you know back to your mind, your being, without any bubble at all, perhaps you'll see it as a gift. Not seeing the world through tainted views. Once your bubble vanishes, all those pretty little petty emotions go with them. You get left with a calm sense of tranquillity.

Have you ever ranted and raved, yelled and screamed, bawled and roared, bellowed and raged until you feel strangely empty? That's the feeling you need to hold on to when it's dark. That feeling of floating, flying, soaring high above everything. That's what you want to be able to think about at night until you fall asleep.

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