‘Hey, are you dead,’ reads an Instagram comment from August, 2014. The comment was made on the Instagram page of a Burlingame High School student that I know who committed suicide less than six months later, Jan. 10, 2015.

The comment was made to ask where this person was, and was not made to be hurtful—in all likelihood, it wasn’t even taken as a hurtful thing by anyone—however, its irony is undeniable.

Death should not be a joke, and suicide is not an act that should elevate one’s status—Kurt Cobain is not a god simply because he shot himself in the head. Songs like ‘Kill Yourself’ by Bo Burnham do nothing but turn a tragedy into a romantic-seeming unreality. Having someone I knew die is not romantic; it does not make me feel like I knew a god. Going to a 15-year-old’s funeral didn’t feel cool, or glitzy, or glamorous.

I do not condemn those who choose to take their lives as selfish, or as cowards. The boy I know who did was neither of those things, and, in fact, was caring, observant and kind. I also don’t condemn people who say things like ‘I have so much homework I’m gonna die’—I’ve said that plenty.

Saying you will die of homework, though, is very different than suggesting to someone, even sarcastically, that they should commit suicide.

Some people disagree. “You shouldn’t say it in front of people who are or were suicidal,” freshman Alejandro Suarez said. “Otherwise, it can be really funny, and that’s fine.”

Most Sequoia students, however, don’t seem to view it as a joke. In fact, 64 percent of students cite suicide and depression as their leading concern on the survey circulated by the Teen Resource center.

How common is joking about suicide? Far, far too common. I read so many Instagram comments or snapchats that tell someone ‘kill yourself’, and I hear it so much in casual conversation, that it seems unavoidable.

For the first few weeks after the person I knew killed himself, I would leave places where I heard it, and cry in any secluded area I could find. (The time I spent doing that was extensive.) I didn’t cry because I really, truly thought the recipients of all of these comments would actually kill themselves. I cried because I didn’t know and I was scared of the 1-in-10,000 chance they would. And I was scared of what those careless people who said those things would think of themselves if the person they said it to actually did commit suicide. And, honestly, you never know.

I’m not saying to monitor every word that passes your lips. It is important to state that jokes can help heal, even ones about sensitive topics, when those jokes are made sensitively. But, if you notice you’ve said something that, in retrospect, you wish you hadn’t, there are words like ‘sorry’, ‘just kidding’, or ‘I didn’t mean that’. If its online, it’s even easier—just three letters: ‘SRY.’ And, if your friends say something, there are such words as ‘stop’, ‘seriously?’ and ‘cut it out’. You can even pair them with a laugh or an eye-roll, if you’d like. But, please, let’s leave suicide as what it is—a tragedy—and not the punchline of every sarcastic comment. We’re more creative than that.