When I finally **** myself, I need you to promise you will not be kind to me. I don’t want roses and a front Paige obituary, do not paint me as an angel being called home. When you write your grief poems I want you to tell the truth. Tell them I was a *****, tell them how I was selfish and you despise me. Tell them of the pain that I gave to you because I was weak and could not handle it myself. When your therapist asks you what you would say to me tell Kathy good riddance, and thank you. When my mother invites you to my send off at the back of the cemetery don’t show up, tell her you have to go water your dog or take your goldfish on a walk. Make up some ******* excuse so you don’t have to see me. Erase the sound of my voice from your brain, delete the photos, tear out my page in the yearbook so that I only exist under a stone marker in the ground. Give my memory to someone who deserves it. I know I’m asking a lot but I need to leave this world knowing  you won’t be hurt, I don’t want you to love me because loving me means hurting you and you don’t deserve to be hurt anymore, you deserve better than me. Better than my outbursts
Better than my anxiety attacks
Better than my stubborn attitude
Better than my paranoia
Better than my inability to trust you, even though you are the closest to home I’ve ever had.
Just better
You deserve the world
I want you to hate me because I love you, but I can’t do this, not anymore

The other day, a boy brought a loaded gun to school. 1000 pairs of watching eyes, hundreds of Facebook posts demanding a name, 10 cop cars outside of turner high, 2 boys who robbed a house, and one boy, with one loaded gun. When I told my mom a boy with a pistol showed up during 4th hour she didn’t even look up from making dinner, not because she doesn’t care, but because a school shooting threat just became every other Friday. The first threat of this year was made by a boy with dark purple hair, angry that he wasn’t allowed to stalk innocent girls, this time a boy was robbed of almost everything, except his ability to load a gun.... I don’t know when it happened, when they replaced fire drills with lock down, when a popped bag of chips stopped a heart beat, when the boy who broke a window got a felony and the one with a weapon got a misdemeanor. My life isn’t worth much but I thought it would be at least worth a year. When did a corpse become necessary for a sentencing? When did a gun become as casual as a book? When did weapons become more popular than to **** a mockingbird? When did the teenage funerals become weekly events?

On the first day of school they asked for two random facts about myself. I come up blank, because I am to consumed by you to remember even my favorite color. I let myself revolve around you over the span of months as if you were the sun but really you where just a collection of Broken stars roaming around, searching for something you didn’t know you wanted, a solar system dedicated to you. I was so devoted to finding beautiful scents to fill your lungs I forgot how to breath and When I realized my lungs were malnourished It was too late. I look for myself I but all I find are reflections of you, the things that used to bring me joy are masked by the smile that convinced me it was all worth it. I feel broken but it does not matter, because at least you will be shiny and new for the next girl. The next girl. The girl who will put Daisy’s in her because you love Daisy’s, The girl who will undress for you, the girl who will cry over you, the girl who will breath only when you ask, the girl who will be a chew toy for when your mundane life is no longer enough, the girl who is enough. I am not that girl. I am this girl. This girl standing in front of a microphone scared out of her wits, this girl who doesn’t know if she is ready to say yes, this girl whose hands are perpetually shaking, this girl who is afraid of her reflection, this girl who is not dresses by herself but by her insecurities, this girl who loved you, this girl was not enough for you but surely must be enough for me. I finally remembered what my favorite color is. Yellow, not because you were once my sun, but because yellow is the color of sunflowers, and I really love sunflowers.