If you've read Andre Aciman's novel "Call me by your name", or seen its movie adaptation, this phrase may be familiar, or perhaps you're a keen reader on 16th century fables, as this is an excerpt from Marguerite Navarre's Heptameron. Be it as it may, I find myself constantly going back and forth over it, pondering my own answer, constantly changing it with every passing day.

"Is it better to Speak, or to Die?"

In both Andre Aciman's novel and Marguerite Navarre's Heptameron, this phrase is conjured in moments where there was much to say with little room to say it, with political and social constraints in-between the characters. But let's not focus on such serious matters for awhile, and just think about that phrase alone, with no context but the need to speak and to be listened, regardless of what the outcomes might be.

Have you ever felt the same? I have.

Let me tell you a pretty short story. It starts with a blooming friendship than began in 2015, transformed into a relationship in that same year and just basically went downhill from that moment. The relationship went on until 2016, ended in early July, and basically went kind of on and off until 2017, where it began again in May, and disappeared like dust in July. Modern love, you may say. I agree.

Let's just say I never really spoke my deepest feelings in those three years. I only died.

Was it better? Of course not. I guess there's not a way for me to actually know that, but I think the longing for saying things unsaid can't be worse that anything else. If it was for me, there wouldn't have happened a relationship at all, he basically did it all for me, so you could say (and I do agree) I'm a coward, and even after we were together, I always had something else to say, but never really had the courage to. The thing was, he said he understood my hesitance, and perhaps he did, but I don't think he actually cared to begin with.

Was it important for him to listen to what I wanted to say? I actually preferred not to speak, because his condescending manners killed me already. So, was it better to speak or to die? I asked myself every day of that strange relationship we had. I guess we are both guilty of failing each other. I was a coward, and he seemed to just never try to fight me in my predicament.

I never told you that it did bother me your secretiveness, your way of trying to hide stuff, even the dumbest things, the way you treated differently from your friends, as if you didn't trust me enough, why didn't you? I thought we were best friends besides being a couple. I am an open book to you, but you just seem too tired to open yourself to me. I ask you again, am I not good enough for you? Why did you even wanted to be with me to begin with?

There's two different ways in using this phrase (now my phrase) in Andre Anciman's novel and Marguerite Navarre's Heptameron. Call me by your name's main character, Elio, utters this question in order to hide his feelings and Amadour, from Heptameron, declaims it to show his feelings. I'm pretty sure Elio and me wanted to be Amadour more than once.

Is it better to Speak, or to Die?

And, after more than six months of our breakup (you dumping me, actually), I still ask myself this question, with still so much to tell you, just dying over my thoughts.

Illustrations from The Heptameron by Marguerite de Navarre and Official Korean Poster for Call me by your Name by Son Eunkyoung.