The wind whipped over the sidewalk, lifting brown and yellow leaves into the air before dropping them again a few feet later; I knew just how they felt. The leaves get stepped on every day and no one thinks about it. No one stops to admire the color and the beauty. No one likes to stop and look at the shapes and how creative they are. I’ve never met someone who had truly appreciated the magnificent complexion of the leaves. For years, this is how I’ve felt about how I and the nicest people are treated. Not only can beauty be taken advantage of, but so can humanity.

I don’t believe in monsters, but you don’t need to believe in something to have it crash through a wall and ruin your life. I learned that the hard way. One day you go to sleep and the next day you awake in a panic. I would never have thought I would have my life threatened until I awoke with him holding a gun to my heart. I tried to stop him but it didn’t work. He shot me where it hurt. He used my weakness to **** me, and it worked. Now I’m in this sort of hellish place where I’m trying to convince the demons to let me go back to who I was.

If I had a dollar for every ghost I spotted along the way, I’d have enough gas money for a year. It felt like everywhere I turned, something reminded me of the past. How when something is new, you can’t put it down. You play with it so much until one day, you do something to break it. You got bored, so you wanted to try something new. You knew what you were doing, but the toy didn’t. The ghosts of the path I walked were the owners of the toy. That toy was my heart.

10 months. It’s taken you 10 months to build me up and then tear me down. I don’t think you realize how much you made me fall for you. Your brown eyes that remind me of when we sat on the bench at our old school after the fair, laughing and kissing. Your smooth hands that remind me of when you stroked my hair at that church after the football game. And your unforgettable giggle that reminds me of how you smiled during our kisses at the playground where we’d run off to after the movie.
All of these details made it harder for me to hate you. I don’t know why you let go of me when I was still holding on with all of my strength. I’ve been to one of the greatest cities in America. I should have been happy. But instead I sat there thinking about how you promised me that one day we’d go together. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of you. I wish I could hear your voice and feel your touch, if only for a few seconds. I would be the happiest girl in the world.
I hope this isn’t the end of our story because I’ve always hated cliffhangers.
I still love you. I never stopped.

The only times I’ve felt like I was suffocating was in an elevator, in a crowd, and when you told me you didn’t love me anymore.

His laugh was contagious.
His touch so gentle.
When he looked at me, I felt safe.
His smile protected me with warmth.
I sat afar, admiring from a distance.
His ignorance to my pleasure
Makes me wish I lived in ignorance, too.
Because he’s not mine to have,
He’s not mine to hold.
But I will wait
Until it is my turn.

I was walking down the street and encountered a man who lives in a box.
He stopped me and began to speak.
I pulled out my wallet to hand him some money.
He placed his hand on my arm and shook his head.
He told me that he had plenty of money,
But that he was poor in friendship.