when someone thanks me for writing the things they wish they could say out loud I apologize for hours until they stop wishing and ask me why. I usually tell them the same thing
"do you know when you're driving alone and that one song comes on, you know that one. that one song with a million different memories dripping off the tongue of that one man who sings like he never got on that airplane and so he didn't not make it back to the ground? and you're thinking about crashing and when you're thinking about crashing you almost do crash, because you were distracted about crashing and you get scared and realize that you just want to not want to crash? well that's how I feel all the time. Even when I'm completely still. Or when you're in the bath and you see faces in the ceiling and you wonder if the faces you're seeing are significant? like maybe you're seeing their face because they never meant to hurt you or maybe you took an extra 20 milligrams today and you're just a little out of sorts."
I'm not done explaining why I'm sorry, but this is usually around the time they interrupt, all "no, I apologize" all "I shouldn't have asked"

When I was in high school I had an English teacher who I thought “got me” and I sent her a song that meant a lot to me. She ignored it and I eventually got that band tattooed on me. In that same class we came to a topic that I felt very passionately about, that same teacher made fun of me for going “Sarah Palin” on my essay.

When I was in high school my uncle told me that he wouldn’t look at me twice if I were standing next to a girl in a pretty dress. He told me that if I wanted boys to like me I should change.  My mom told me it was my fault because I whined about boys not liking me. My mom told me that my anxiety is selfish and made up. My mom has done many great things for me. So has my uncle. Maybe it is selfish that I’m only writing about the bad stuff.

When I was in high school my biological mother got married and I found out via facebook. I was devastated and innocent and literally could not understand why I would not be in the wedding. I went outside to the garden owned by my parents who did not give birth to me and cut myself in the yard. When you’re bleeding you don’t worry about anything else.

The only biological family I felt close to was my on father’s side.  I felt like they accepted me for who I was- while I always felt like I was pretending with my adoptive family. Maybe the idea that I am more natural with my biological family is something I created in my own head. I am very lucky to be an adopted child with a relationship with their biological family. I felt bad for my little brother on having such a confusing family structure. I wondered if he understood why. I fear that he is being raised in a hyper masculine way that I morally do not agree with. My Uncle Billy loved me exactly for who I am. He died and for the first time I experienced real loss. Someone who truly loves me has died. This is what growing up is.  I believe my biological mother has decided that it is less painful not to remain in communication with me. I have learned that it is never easier that way. At least not for me.

Now I am living in Boston. I have a goal. I have a passion I want to pursue. I have Christmas lights and candles and artwork and tattoos and healthy friendships and big dolly and candy and hot chocolate and good music and a phone and safety net waiting for me back at home. I want to help others. That is my goal in life. I want to work in a group home or a homeless shelter or a **** victim crisis center or anything. I think I can save the world even if I can’t save the whole world. We all have little worlds that we carry around with us. We learn from pain, we become something of it, we make it count.

replaced is such an ugly word, only found in hospital rooms when organs fail, in bedrooms when your daughter's heart is ripped from her chest by that boy with no job

being replaced brought out the worst in me.
there is malice in all of us, we just can't feel it all the time
tingling in our fingertips making us want to punch concrete
i just want to see blood i don't care if it's my own
the malice in me lingers and can understand why Columbine happened and how serial killers sleep at night

the only boyfriend I have ever loved moved thousands of miles away and replaced me within 4 months. how dare I compare that pain to the death of a loved one i am sorry if you have broken your neck when I have only broken fingers

what I'm trying to say is I can't show up at your bedside with a knife and I can't burn the stuffed animal you have slept with since you were born

this is the pain I wish upon you: I hope that one day he is sleeping peacefully in a queen sized bed you bought days after purchasing your first apartment, I hope your curiosity leads you to his drawers. i hope you find my letters, read them and understand how much I loved him. I hope you feel sick thinking about how I was everything before you were even a thought. most of all, I hope you wonder what he wrote in his letters to me. I hope it keeps you awake at night. I hope that stationary in the bottom of my drawer haunts you. that is the part of him I get to keep. i hope you feel like he will never be wholly yours

this is the reality: she laughed and gripped my letters wanting to burn them. the feeling of satisfaction that the past is gone and can never be relived dulled the pain of jealousy. there is no winner and there is no loser, only love, lost love, time and the consequence of circumstance. if distance is only in the mind than i have to stop blaming the oceans between us. in her hands is a part of me i can never get back. the idea that he will never be whole with that piece of the past in my possession would mean that I can never be fully whole. maybe we're all better off burning the letters

this is an open letter to anyone who has the audacity to try and love you like i did.

dear whateverthefuckyournameis,

i apologize in advance for spilling my boiled blood on the hem of your skirt. what you need to understand, is that you are standing on ground previously reserved for my feet, so forgive me for any bitterness that seeps through the cracks in my clenched fists. i don't hate you, but i can't be your friend. you probably don't know about me, and if you do, let me commend your bravery. i have a tendency to set my problems on fire, and in my bouts of anger everything looks flammable, especially girls with paper complexions. i'm sorry. i have never been one to walk away, so i don't know how to explain to you the holes in the bottoms of my shoes. but i have been further than you will ever go. this is not supposed to be an angry letter, but lately that's the only thing coming out of me. i don't even know your name but the thought of your hands reaching for him makes we want to break them. i will douse your dreams in gasoline and strike the match against your cheek. but i know that's not right, see, the poison crawling out from the end of my pen belongs to a scarier version of myself i try not to know. my heartache is an insatiable war cry in the dead of night, that will stop at nothing to shatter all your windows. it shames me to admit that i've found a sort of twisted satisfaction in using passive aggression to breach your armor. i am sick with missing a set of arms i was not privileged enough to know. i speak with all the grace of an atom bomb and wonder about the rubble at my feet. you are white picket fence and i am barbed wire. some girls are lions, some are lambs, and i learned to love, teeth bared and snarling. one of the only things that keeps me going is the hope that one day i'll learn how to love something without making it bleed. i may have never been his, but for a time he was mine, so please understand why i taste acid when i think about your mouth on his. again, i am sorry. i know it is not my place to be so full of resentment, but there is a part of me that sincerely hopes it bothers you to know he dreamt of me before you were even a thought. there is a side of me that thrives on the image of the color being drained from your face when you read this. but i am trying to learn how to be softer. this letter is the manifestation of a self-inflicted war that has been raging in my chest since he first told me about you. you will try to be good to him, and you might even succeed. if you ever find yourself singing him to sleep, like i did, don't ask if he wants to hear another song, just keep going until his breathing slows.

- m.f.

it’s when I’m trying to sleep and I think I hear noises by the door that I realize I no longer feel comforted knowing that my mom is sleeping in her room nearby, I can only save myself, so I put a knife in my room just in case just in case anyone ever came in to slit my throat, I realized I was living in constant fear and I did not choose to live my life like this did anyone choose to live like this.... my anxiety makes me sick mostly when I think of you

it was when you heard a fly buzz when you died that I realized you could make even a fly beautiful by putting it into a ******* poem and how the last thing you did before you died was make a bowl of cereal but that bowl of cereal mattered because you were making it for someone you love and that quote says everything you do will be insignificant but it’s very important that you do it I can’t remember it anymore but you didn’t die screaming for what your heart told you was right or embraced in the arms of the one you love you died making a bowl of cereal so whats the point

it is crazy how the ghost of you had much more to do with me than it does with you, you lingered in every move I made, I lost you but I still felt you so today I compared your memory to a mental illness and there are triggers all around me but I don't have panic attacks anymore

I haven't stopped remembering but I am realizing how masking insecurities with pretty little love letters can become toxic because every dot on every i of every "i love you" turned into a bullet that destroyed me more than it destroyed you and I can't remember if I actually loved you or had just completely lost myself because i wanted to drive off the road to see if you cared; maybe that is love but i hope it is not the kind of love that lasts forever