Dear whoever:

To Whom It May Concern:

I’m writing this to let you know-

I can’t-

One filled up bin

One wrecked notebook

One hundred crumpled pages later

My throat is so tight

My hands are bleeding

My eyes are sore

How do I tell them?

Am I too sick to care?

Am I too sick to recover?

“You have so many reasons to live”

Yet those reasons seem to be a fiction you feed to me whilst you write notes down into your leather-bound journal

My head is such a mess that all the wounds in it continue to tear and open

At this point there is no possibility of being stitched up

Rejection after rejection

Loss after loss

I felt hopeful for 2 hours earlier today and then got an email reminding me that I am just not quite good enough

“So when is the last time you genuinely felt happy”

Maybe it was when I was 7 or 8 and sat on the grass building make-believe worlds the suns gentle warmth pressed lightly against my back, knowing I could cry and people would listen because I was young and still had so much to learn

I long for that blissful naivety of being young

And though I know I am still young (ish) , I am not young enough

And so many people stripped me of my youth way too soon because being a teenager you’re told to aspire to act grown up which wore me out so much

That those days were still filled with

One filled up bin

One wrecked notebook

One hundred crumpled pages later

I never intended to live this long.