I have a very horrible, overwhelming fear that everyone is going to forget about me.
I feel like the people version of the moments that don't get caught on camera and put in a photo album or like watching the sun go down every night so the bright purple, pink, red, orange, blue hues all just blend together or like trying to feel time that has already passed.
I don't want to look up at the stars anymore because I'm afraid that I'll miss one or one will disappear if I blink, I'm even more afraid that that's how I am in people's lives. I'm there and then I'm not and it'll just be another thing to forget.

God is not found on the hundred pages of verses in a Bible or at the altar of a church or in between the lines of a hymn found in the 3rd pew or in the pauses of an ongoing, thundering sermon.
God is found in the ashes of a cigarette while the sun rises and in the moments where the radio breaks up but everyone is still singing and the mornings after a night out drinking where you don't end up hung over. God is found in the heart of a girl who does not fear a man. God is in small moments that everyone can believe in, even those who don't want to acknowledge him.

I don't know how to be this way I don't know how to be this girl
I don't know how to laugh on cue or smile with my eyes
I don't grow beautiful flowers and sunrises anymore
I drink wine and don't choke anymore
I don't know how to be this person

You think I need you?
I can guide the sun across the sky and make stars disappear faster than they arrived and create ever lasting constellations and spin saturn by its rings and
all you can do is pray to me and
your voice is lost in the emptiness of space
Do you really think I need you?

I was created from car crashes and cigarette smoke and alcohol and neglectful and broken parents
I was created from their hurt
I was created to be hurt
I was born unlovable
I was born not being able to love
I was born sad
I was born with a name that means to be brave
I was born with a curved spine and was made into a titanium one
I was made into long legs and unruly brown hair and green eyes and loud opinions with a soft voice
I was made to be resilient.

I am sitting in the closet taking shots from the 4 different alcohol bottles I have in front of me
And I can't breathe
I can't breathe on good days
And I can't breathe on bad days
And today is a really bad day.
Remember when I said I wouldn't know what to do if you both left me?
I have watched you both choose each other over me so many times.
So now I'm the one leaving.
I'm leaving because I want to breathe more easily,
I can't remember what it feels like for air to reach my lungs.
I can't remember what it's like to breathe deeply.
I gave everything up for you.
Now I have to choose me, I have to pick me, I have to be selfish. This is for me.

You are the only person I think I will never tell how I feel or at least how I previously felt because it'll never be my place or the right time so-
I will always wonder if there was a missed communication or something I couldve said differently or done differently or anything I could've changed
I will always wonder if you knew or if you would have changed something if you did maybe you wouldn't have been so vague or maybe you wouldn't have made me laugh so hard or asked about my weekend or always started the conversation first because I was too proud to
I will always wonder if you noticed my hands and voice shaking the first time you ever talked to me
I will always wonder if you ever think back on what we used to talk about because I'm sure you never realized but I told you my tiny secrets and all I can do is hope that you knew.
I will always wonder about you.

You say "I know" when I tell you in the beginning that as much as I hope this lasts I don't think it will. I laugh because I dont think you do. Do you understand?
We are watching TV together on the couch and suddenly I get up and leave and I don't talk to you or see you much for a while. Do you understand?
It is 2 weeks after I left you on the couch and you watch the words fall out of my mouth as I tell your our relationship is over. Before I can even finish the first sentence you interrupt me and apologize for whatever you did wrong and I try to convince you that you didn't do anything wrong. Do you understand?
After we broke up we didn't talk for a while. Over the summer we become friends again and as the days get hotter and more humid I watch you fall in love with me all over again. We are sitting in your car in a near empty parking lot and I am watching you try to form the words into a sentence. I make rambling small talk about things neither of us care about because I know if I give you the chance to talk you are going to ruin it. Do you understand?
The air is starting to cool and school is around the corner and summer is coming to an end. And suddenly you are ruining it because there is no more small things for me to ramble in about so I have to finally give you the chance to speak. We are outside of my house standing on the stoop. Well, you are standing and I am sitting. I am sitting because I have known for a while now that you are going to ruin it so when you text me that you are coming over I take 4 shots of tequila and wait for you to knock on the door. Do you understand?
You know that I've always wanted a Venus fly trap so you buy me one for my birthday. It dies before you can give it to me. Do you understand?
I am drunk at a party with my friends and you are drunk at a different party with your friends. They are calling me to tell me that you love me, they are calling me to ask why I don't love you. You are calling me to ask if I love someone else. I am laughing and then suddenly you are calling me a stupid ***** and telling me that I should feel lucky because I'm not your type and you hate everything I believe in and fight for but you love me anyways. And I think back to the beginning and how ironic it is that you were the one saying "I know" but out of the two of us I was the one who knew how this was going to end. Do you understand?

I miss writing and I miss photography but my insides are so ******* sad I can't breathe properly anymore. I have lost the love that made me able to do the things I was good at, I don't believe in it anymore so everything and everyone has stopped believing in me too.
I used to drink 3 cups of coffee every morning before school and my hands would shake and I would research space and go on long rants about it to everybody even though nobody cared but it didn't matter because I thought it was beautiful anyways
I was innocent and 14 years old and desperate for somebody to love me and I created beautiful things and beautiful art. I absorbed everything. I learned so much on my own. I was resilient.
Me and my manager were joking around and I went to say the word "chauffeur". I messed up and pronounced it 2 different ways, I asked him which one was correct. When he replied he jokingly asked if I could spell it, expecting me not to be able to. I did. He laughed and said "you know how to spell it but not how to say it?" I wanted to say I am used to knowing words but I am not used to being allowed to speak. I am used to knowing how to be quiet when people ask me to. I am used to knowing how to always be silent because I know somebody is eventually going to ask me to.
I am 18 years old and I don't know how to hug people. I do not believe in love so I do not need someone to love me. I do not create things or make art. The only things I absorb anymore are things that make me sad and they stay in me and I don't know how to get them out. I learn everyday how to be more quiet than the day before. I do not know how to write beautifully anymore and nothing inspires me. I do not bounceback after bad things happen to me anymore, I just find new ways to suppress them.
I don't know if any of this makes sense I know it just seems like random scenes juxtaposed together.
What my point is, what I'm trying to say is, don't lose your love. Don't lose your passion, your innocence, your ability to see the beauty in things. You will feel the ache every day, it is not something you can willfully, blissfully, ignore. It demands to be felt and the feelings that are gone will probably never come back to you.
Do not lose your love. Please, promise me. Do not lose your love.