Dear J, You have always been my what-if. My what-could’ve-been. Looking at you now, I don’t see any of the flaws everyone says you have. I don’t hear any of their lies. All I see is beauty. Gritty, tired bags always hanging underneath your eyes, faded and worn, but something…

The rain makes it harder. During days like these; weeks like this. The rain brings out an extreme I’m trying to balance with the other. But the rain, oh the rain just doesn’t help does it? …

Am I broken enough? What does enough look like to you? How many years of suffocation do you need so I can qualify for a love like yours? I don’t want to keep breaking but I don’t see any other way out. …

One of the things I hate most is that you are living your life as if you have a full understanding of me, of what happened, of the way things are. …

I think I died to her. And probably countless others I don’t even know. All because of the fire that’s been burning me alive since I had that first dream in fifth grade. If I close my eyes tight enough, I can still see her face. …

I’m not sure what to do with all of this fear. It’s been bubbling over for some time now but even the cavity I store it in is overflowing. Can someone help me out of here? Take on some of these thoughts? They don’t bite, I promise. They don’t even…

Only a few years ago did I spend countless hours huddled around the only thing I thought loved me. Digging my nails so deep into my side, I still have some scars to show those brave enough to look into a past I’m too ashamed of. Or maybe I’m not…

What were they giving you that you weren’t getting elsewhere? What relationships in your life now meet the needs you have that they once filled? Questions I have no answers for. Questions that haunt me long after they were asked. If I can’t come up with an answer, does that…

If I could sit down with a version of my younger self, I would hold her little hands and tell her to breathe. Tell her that the dreams you get of the girls you don’t know doesn’t mean you’re doomed to end up somewhere unspeakable. It doesn’t mean you have…