not edgar allan poe

punishment

That little notification popping up in the corner of her screen makes her tremble with fear of the known, just a little.
It's only worse when she thinks I dont know.

Seven minutes pass before she knows how to reply, and even then her words are stretched.
"I'm sorry," and "I shouldn't be allowed
to live after the things I did," she phrases shakily, like her tears are so blurring in her eyes that words don't make sense anymore.

But I wonder,
why is death a punishment?
Why do we choose that to have nothing, not even life, is the ultimate way to destroy ourselves?

Death would be a relief from anything we believe is torturing us
rather than temporary lust for no pain and blood running down our arms and legs. It would be nothing.

And so I carefully type back to her,
"You're punishing yourself enough, death is too easy, living is the ultimate
punishment. So stay alive, not to suffer, not to let me watch you
suffer, but to prove to yourself that death would have been too
easily conquered."

And she lived.