Sometimes I wonder
Since I'm not loved or cared for
why don't I just die?

Just Cassie and I, sitting on the large granite steps of the city's library, reciting poetry in fake accents and recounting the woes of our unrequited loves.

  Just Cassie and I, wishing there was more to life than warm Summer days and standoffish boys.

   Just Cassie and I, eating ice-cream, riding our bikes down to the creek, crying over sappy love stories.

   Not once did we realize how different we were, how quickly everything could change.
  
For that Summer was the last, the Autumn dividing us with school, and work, and we realized only then that paradise can never last forever.

   Sometimes I still sit, by myself, on those large granite steps, reading the November day away and wishing things could have stayed the same.

   I would never know, she did the same.

Dear 2020,

I soon realized that these letters were not for me. They were for my parents, who would be surprised but not truly shocked. And so, having realized this, I write this also to them. Soon I will send them the link to my account so that they may read my extensive list of suicide notes. Because I can’t bring myself to believe that anyone truly loves me. Because I don’t love me. And although I wrote my true suicide note several weeks ago, this is my goodbye to a truly horrifying and terrifying world. And the truth is that I probably won’t die today, but if I find myself doing so then I will send the link to my account to my parents.

surprisingly enough,
steak knives aren't any good for cutting flesh,
ceiling fans don't hold as much weight as you'd think they would,
your family isn't as understanding as they say they are,
because no one can understand you, not even yourself.

and no matter how many times they say they won't forget,
won't forfeit the game of remembrance,
you know they will, and they'll be glad once they have.

Because you don't need a stain like me on the artwork that is your life. scrub me off quickly before the memories get dry and you get used to them.

Because I know from experience that only one soul will remember a suicide by the next year.

Because I know from experience you don't have to be dead and gone to be dead and gone.

I have already been forgotten by most, but then again,

I don't want to be remembered.

Here is a little girl
With dark lashes
And eight-looped braids
Her limbs as
Thin and white as bone
She’s shivering in the cold
Of her thoughts a
surging, raging ocean, a dark horse.
Her face downturned violently,
As if she had no neck,
She swings with the breeze of
A thousand cold breaths
Her breast cold, as if
She hadn’t any heartbeat.

Here hangs a little girl
The subject of damnation by
A hundred harsh thoughts,
A thousand cold shoulders,
And the godless hell in which she resided.

Dear 2020,
   Today we drive to Boston. I type this very quietly to you as not to disturb anyone sleeping in the hotel, like my father, who continues his slumber although it is almost seven A.M.
   But I mostly write to you today about the thoughts I've been having recently. More thoughts that I would be better off dead, plotting thoughts of killing myself, and yet an abundant fear of death.
   These are not the only thoughts, though. I also have overwhelming powerful thoughts of reverting back to my anorexia, giving in to its seductive calls and potent warnings of gaining weight because I eat. The thoughts tell me how disgusting I am, how no one will ever love me because of that fact, and says that Machaela's rejection of me is only proof that I am disgusting and my overall worthlessness.
   Oh, yes. I suppose I didn't tell you how Mahchaela rejected me again, the only difference being this time that she was sure of herself. How she keeps inviting me to things with a halfhearted tone, which I suspect if the result of being forced to invite me by Ana and their father.
   So yeah, my life has definitely taken a turn for the worse and I worry that when I go to see my next psychiatrist, therapist, or whomever I see next will simply toss me back into the hospital for suicide risk and then back to Old Vineyard I'll go. Because almost nothing is actually helping me cope. And I still believe that I will simply **** myself in a few months, or years, therefore not having a long life. I have believed this will happen for the entirety of the last year.

Love always,

                         Hollin