i have to show the world that what you three did to me only scratched my surface,
only took off the shiny layer of myself that i had previously perfected for the eyes of society’s critical audience.
but you didn’t.
you’ve broken my soul
and torn my heart
and punctured my lungs
and i’m finding it harder to live and breathe every single day.
people think that the pain caused by an experience like this lives and dies in the moment that it happens,
but those people are sincerely wrong.
it's been three hundred and twenty-seven days since it happened,
since each of you violated me
and took advantage of me
and abused my right to consent.
but i bet you didn’t know that those days equate to seven thousand, eight hundred and forty-eight hours that it’s been on my mind
and i bet you didn’t know that the nightmare is now burned into my skin
and flowing through my blood
and coded into my dna.
the constant feeling that my body is no longer mine will not leave.
the feeling that i’m missing a part of myself is going to stick with me.
the feeling that my heart strings are severed,
that my lungs have burst,
that my legs can no longer carry the weight of my newly found burden
and that my life has been tainted by your evil touch
will never disperse.
these feelings cannot be brushed under a rug,
but i’ve got to appear like they can to the outside world.
do you know what else hurts?
what also hurts is that this trauma,
the same trauma that is making me want to end my life,
constantly hoping that the last of my heart strings will break so that my heart can plummet to the depths of my destroyed soul to lay with my sanity,
is being used to mock me.
as if my life could be forced into further submission without the teasing and bullying of my peers.
thank you,
to the three boys that took my innocence,
turned my meaning of the word ‘no’ into ‘yes’
and made my body into a lighthouse as a guide for the devil.
he’s found me.
you’ve broke me.
you win.

Dear Chester,
This letter, even though you will never see it, is a thank you letter.
When I saw the news today of your death, my world turned upside down. I was shaking, crying, barely able to breathe. I was so shocked to see your name in a headline alongside the words “Dead” and “Suicide”. I didn’t believe I for a while, because I’d also seen the article about your death being a hoax, but then I saw Mike’s tweet, and the news stories on NY Times and Washington Post, and I realized - it was true. My greatest inspiration was gone.
I can’t really pinpoint when you became such an inspiration to me. I started listening to Linkin Park when I was in seventh or eighth grade, after my mom put the Twilight soundtrack on my iPod shuffle and I heard Leave Out All the Rest. LOATR soon became my favorite song, and it still is six years later. I started listening to LP religiously after Living Things came out. I fell in love with the raw emotions of Meteora, and the clean energy of Living Things; the eager buzz of Hybrid Theory and the simple but true sound of Minutes to Midnight. A Thousand Suns completely blew my mind.
As I started to learn more about the band, I also learned more about you. I found out that you had a rough life growing up, struggling with ****** abuse as a kid, and drugs and alcohol as a teen and young adult. Depression tormented you your whole life. But you drew strength from those experiences, and became this amazing badass with a big heart who would do anything for his friends and family. You didn’t stop shows because of a broken arm, or cancel tours because a spider bit you in the ***, and even when you did have to end a tour because of a broken leg, you came right back as soon as you were able to give us the show we’d been waiting for.
You never failed to show your love for your fans, your family, or your fellow band members and musicians, and we all noticed and loved that.
I admired your dedication to the people around you, and how tough you always were, and how you stayed so strong and kept such a big smile on your face. Your amazing singing voice kept me going through the standard teenage angst phase that is high school.

For a long time, a huge dream of mine has been to see Linkin Park live, to see you and Mike and Brad and Phoenix and Rob and Joe on stage, playing all of my favorite songs. An even bigger but less likely dream was to actually meet you, hug you, and say, “Thank you.”
It breaks my heart to realize that now, that will never happen. You’re gone. Your beautiful voice can now only be heard in recordings, your grin now only seen in videos and photographs.
I still can’t fully believe that you’re gone.
And even though your death was one that seems to leave no hope, you still are and always will be an inspiration to me.

Thank you, Chester.
I know that you will never see this, but thank you.

Rock on forever,
  Sky

I'm heartbroken over the news of Chester Bennington's suicide. He's been my inspiration for years. You will be missed, Chazzy Chaz. <3

She was night when I met her.

The hills beyond bathed in moonlight,
though she seemed to hide from faint starshine
sheltered and hidden: wrapped in a mystery cloak
woven from fibrous shadows and dyed
in the deepest part of the ocean with midnight hues
untouched by the constellations.

She was summer aurora soon after her night.

I took her hand into the dewy field,
we reveled in the damp and softened earth
and the stars blossomed: points of bursting light
fixed among the twilit blue-greens
like the blinking bulbs of fireflies
who floated between our heads.

She was daybreak after her sky turned aquamarine.

The stars hid themselves under our feet,
the sun appeared on our horizon
and painted our faces in pinks and oranges: her hand
so soft and gentle, slipped from mine
trailing warmth against the flesh of my palm
where her fingertips kissed my skin.

She was high morning when the sky’s pinks faded.

I cradled her face between my two hands,
pressed kindnesses into her cheeks
and turned our noses to the sunshine: her celestial smile
played notes on her lips,
singing lilting aria in a rising melody
as the light radiated warmth across her face.

But now she is a rainbow in refracted afternoon.

She gleams in every color now her cloak is shed,
red in heart, orange in grin, yellow in mind,
green in energy, blue in veins, violet in spirit: but most of all
she is soft pink, pale white, and baby blue,
a harmony of hues
which she had kept hidden under her cloak of night.

I wrote you a letter,
and then another letter,
and another, and another,
until I wrote you a word.

So I wrote you a word,
and then another word,
and another, and another,
until I wrote you a sentence.

So I wrote you a sentence,
and then another sentence,
and another, and another,
until I wrote you a letter.

I hope it finds you as I found you.

Yours truly,
Yours, truly.

How many times
Have we fallen
On the ground
While we tried
To walk on?

Did we ever stay
On the ground,
And cry over our failure,
Or did we stand
On our feet,
And continue trying
To walk on perfectly?

In the same way;
In search of our fate;

We will stumble
Over and over again;

However,

Our perseverance will determine
Our strength,
To stand on our own
And still going on!