I still type,
Those things,
We would say to eachother.
They all go,
In my notes,
Because I cant say 'em to you.
I still pretend,
That it's okay,
When I'm only kidding myself.
Call me stupid,
Maybe I'm ignorant,
But I wish my notepad could type back.

It was a Monday afternoon...

4th period, first semester 10th grade. Drafting class.

You hated the class. And I... didn't.

But we had fun anyway. I had a headphone splitter and while we worked we watched YouTube videos together. You introduced me to Panic! At The Disco, My Chemical Romance, All Time Low, Bring Me The Horizon, Black Veil Brides, And Jon Cozart.

And I showed you FadeIntoCase, Dodie Clark, and whatever YouTube had to offer that interested me.

Our friendship was good. We never had to worry about boyfriends or girlfriends, we were just kids. But I guess looking back, I can say that we were definitely better people than most.

I feel bad about that one day you were rewatching the Deadpool trailer over and over. You asked me what Deadpool video we should watch next.

And I told you I thought you should calm down.

You pulled the headphone splitter out your computer and chucked it my way. A sudden disconnect. I immediately apologized and when I realized you didn't want to hear it, I stopped trying to get your attention.

I know that's a stupid memory, but I still feel bad about it for some reason.

But I also remember that Monday afternoon that would test our friendship. We were in class and you were... not there, mentally I mean.

You were crying and I felt like something needed to be done. So I went and asked the teacher to let you go... and he did. As soon as I told you, you left.

And I felt bad. I knew I did the right thing, but I felt bad because I was going out of my way to make life better for someone I truly care about. It was overwhelming but I did it anyway.

I took your bag and waited for you outside the classroom. But you didn't show up. I found another friend and began crying in her arms, telling her how I couldn't do it anymore. Eventually you did find me, you took your bag and left.

I felt bad because I felt like my efforts went unappreciated time and time again. But they weren't.

I went home to write the song "At what cost?", which I performed the next day. You asked me why you hadn't heard the song before. I told you I wrote it after what happened. And I promised to send you every song I'd write from then on. And I did.

I still do.

I wrote you letters and cigarettes, I meant everything I wrote. And now where are we?

During the musical, I made and effort to wish you good luck before your big song, every single show. Every show...

You baked me cupcakes for my birthday.

The last time we FaceTimed was a Monday night. We listened to Disney music while you worked on art. You offered to FaceTime... I felt lucky that you would want to hang out with someone like me.

I would give you a hug everyday before leaving school at the end of the day...

In the last cigarette you gave me for my birthday you wrote "I couldn't ask for a better person to go to France with."

And I believed you.

So while we were in France. I can only remember watching a part of an episode of Riverdale with you and thinking to myself, "she still cares... we're okay".

We played games of 31 and that felt normal. But then we played cards in a different crowd and suddenly I didn't feel safe around them. I felt judged, by them, by you.

I don't even know if the locks mattered to you. You gave the letters back as if they didn't matter... I don't know how to fix this.

I remember walking slower to get the attention of a guy. And you saw me walking by myself and tried starting a conversation with me. I told you I was in the middle of another conversation. So you left me to try and talk to him.

You even said, "It's been awhile since we've talked." AND YOU WERE RIGHT!!

I should've stayed back and talked to you.

I wish I did.

I still care about you. So much so that I'm willing to leave you if it'll make you happy. I'm sorry.

How much I remember makes me cry because I will never be able to take back everything I did wrong. And now it's too late.

When I asked you if you thought we'd still be friends after high school, you said you didn't know.

And I believed you. But I still hold out the smallest bit of hope. Everyday, that you'll tell me it's gonna be okay, and that our friendship didn't just...

Pass by...

That I was somebody to you.

On your birthday, at the stroke of midnight, I texted you saying happy birthday the same way I did the year before. And you just said, "Thank you".

So I guess...

Thank you for being there. Thank you for existing. Thank you for being my friend. And if, in the future, I do make things right and we become close again, than maybe I can drop this guilt and shame for what I did.

Because I need too know...

If I'm worth your friendship all over again.

I'm sorry I ******* up. And if I could do it all over again, I would. And I would make all the right choices, making our lives better.

And if this really is the end. I just hope that you listen to my songs once in a while and remember me as someone who wrote a couple good songs for you.

Because "Rush" is still my best piece of work. And it's yours.

Been dreaming about you lately,
Seeing someone like you and feel happy,
Missing your loud voice, your round big eyes,
Your endless stories and all the thing you taught me,
the way you listen to my problems and believe in me,
I'm sorry if I did that to you,
I can't get you out of my mind lately,
I'm really missing you,
if only I can talk to you again but I can't.

Hey God...

I have a confession.

I am not a good person.

I know it isn't original, and I know you've heard this too many times from too many broken people.

But it's the only shred of honesty I can give so please accept it...
Because I do not know how to forgive myself for this tower of lies I built over the last month and a half.

I am not a good friend.

I try...

And you know I try. But I haven't been trying as hard as I used to.
But I want to try and make things right.

I have convinced myself that heaven seems too high up for me to get to.
And I'm here asking you to tell me there is still a chance for me to be saved from my life.

I went to church today for the first time in months.
I saw old friends, and read new verses... I learned more.
Although I still feel like an outcast in this place we call "safe".

I can't feel your presence near me even when I pray.
It's like I've cut the communication lines and there is no repairing them.

I am willing to work for my life.
I will build houses of faith and sing praises until I drop, but it won't be enough.

I work well under pressure. So if you told me that getting to heaven was as simple as building a ladder as high as I could in 24 hours, I would work through war and hellfire to get there.

I would climb every rung until the ladder ended above the clouds and started feeling like the solid foundation of a life restarted.

I can only hope you will accept me with open arms, forgiveness...

And a "hello."

I met you 3 years ago.

5' 2" and terrifying.

You never got any taller, but your rockstar personality shot right to the moon and back. And you never let anybody bring you down or tell you what to do. I admired that about you.

I remember the dumbest things about our friendship. I remember working with you on a group project we both didn't care about. I remember becoming friends with you like it was an easy thing, like we both knew we would be friends eventually.

I remember the first song I ever sent to you, and not expecting you to like it but you did anyway. You told me the song would even get stuck in your head. I promised to send you every song I would ever write.

We were close. I would always make time to talk to you. It didn't matter whether or not you were interrupting anything, I would set anything aside to talk to you.

We shared our jokes, and our pain. Our laughter and longing, we were good friends and we never let each other down.

Until now.

And I will admit that this is my fault.
Please don't place all of the blame on her.
She may be guilty, but so am I.
2 out of the 3 problems were caused by my impulses.
I can handle 66.7% of the blame and consequences.
I can do that.

You can hate me if you want.
You tell me you don't want to talk to her anymore.

I tell you I respect your decision and that I will be here if you need me.

I am sorry.

I know I ******* up our friendship, and I wish I could take it all back.
I wish you could remember me as the innocent songwriter who held out arms of comfort instead of words of contradiction.

I am terrible.

And you don't need me.

But if your heart finds enough forgiveness to see past this.
I will give you a way out.
And if you choose not to take it.
Then maybe you believe that I am worth taking back.

That our friendship is worth fixing.

So tell me:

If I am worth that much...

Are you okay with the idea of starting over?

Because I want to make this better.
You don't have to be around me if you don't want to.

But if I can start over.

I will live through my life thankful that I got a second chance at all.

There has always been my family...

And My Family.

Day 1

I was born.
This girl was born to her parents not knowing anything. Living her life through school and music with her sisters and little brother, this is her life.
This is her family.
This is my family.

9th Grade

I meet a girl, and she is the definition of deafening headphone music and larger than life punk rock music. These types of instantaneous connections are too strong to ignore.
I knew right away, we would be friends.
She introduces me to her friends and I find myself in a group hug of my new friends, people who decided to accept me.
This is her family.
This is my family.

10th Grade

The same girl is my closest friend. But I am not her closest friend. I feel her pull away to be somebody else, and that is okay. I will often run to her crying and sad and she will do her best to pick me up. And she does.
The friend group we have is more like home than the house I sleep in. I forget about my parents and find comfort in the arms of my friends.
I feel conflicted about which family means more to me.
I tell her, "I know blood is thicker than water."
She tells me, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

...I have never heard that before.

Is this her way of saying that we are more family than anything?
Maybe we are.
Or maybe we were.

We walk together knowing that we are never giving up on each other.
This is her family.
This is my family.

11th Grade

I meet another girl. A friend of a friend. Jealousy builds. Attention is a fight nobody wants to lose, I have become the 3rd party nobody asked for.
Families are supposed to fight. But now my family is not one that will fight for our happiness back.

But I want to.

I always have.

But I cannot fix this because I am not the only person involved.
Why are we fighting?!

Day X

I wish I could take back my mistakes.
One friend describes her life connected to 4 people... one of which is no longer talking to her.

And that one friend is also part of my family. And if losing 1 of 4 people you love is a tragedy, than for me...

It is losing 1 out of the 2 people I have left.
The two people I care for most will not talk to each other. And I am the biggest mediator the world never needed. But I cannot let go of either of the two people I love and care about.

I initiated the disaster. I started the dominoes. And I will pay for it.

I have to.

Nobody expected this catastrophe to affect me, or her, or the boyfriend, or the girlfriend, or the best friend, or the lost friend...

The victim
The aggressor
The manipulator
The cryer
The coward

Me

I cannot fix this with my own two hands.

I look at the two people I care for most.
They will not talk to each other.
And to a point, it is my fault.

I look at them.
We all had to suffer and bleed for this covenant of friendship and family.

This is their family.
This is my family.

This was my family.

Please forgive me.
We both know, I'm the one that breaks.
While we both have demons,
Mine run deep.
I know you're trying to find yourself.
I'm sorry, that I'm not helping you.
But I see a garden growing in your mind.
Someday you'll wake up and realize that a boy like you is strong.
You are meant for many things.
But when the water of happiness pours over me.
I'm promised it will set me free.
But the water drowns me.
Emotion after emotions washes over me.
I'm told at age 8, "things will get better"
I'm told the same at 16.
Finally on my 18th, I'll tell myself maybe I'm not meant for this life.
I don't wish to be drowning in my emotions.
I don't wish for the life that has broken me 10x over.
I wish to be like you.
I wish to find myself, too.
But chains from my past old me down.
The hold me down and wrap around me, I'm surround by the sea.
I'm flooded and drowned with of a sea of emotions.
Is this what I've become?
A shell? A shell of who I used to be.
I'm watered down.
A watered down shell.

You get closer and closer,
After all the things I've done,
When I've already hurt,
You and everyone.

This isn't funny,
Beause I don't get it,
Why do you protect me,
When I've always been zilch?

Don't say that I've been something,
I don't want to believe it's true,
All I wanted to be,
Is to be someone, like all of you.

I'm choking on my words and they swallow like bile,
like acid burns all the way down into my abdomen.
I have to say goodbye,
push you away because I am no good, I am broken and bruised,
an over ripe fruit who is only worth the compost she can become.
I don't want to, the words haven't left my throat and I already miss what we had,
I feel the gap in my chest like open wound,
like empty airless space has entered the void of me.
Not even its stars can warm what is left of me.

I am sorry.
I don't know how else to say this.
I am so sorry that you ever felt the burden of loving a wreck like me.
For a time I believed I could have been more than this,
that maybe I had phenix bones and I could make worth in the ashes of this. All I got was burning.
In the hardest way I learned that I am human and nothing more can come from this.
In part I blame you.
You made me - make me - feel as though there is more to this than the story I am reading.
The problem here is that I have always been bad at context clues and the words are beginning to fade wth age anyway.
Its immoral to blame you for my humanity but it hurts more if I acknowledge that you are better than anything I will ever deserve.


If it hurts less I want you to hate me. Hate everything I allow myself to become when I take on the monster in my mind.
Know that none of that means I will learn to not love you.
I just can't be strong enough in that love to be present when it all falls apart around me.
You should keep the happy memories, never learn the skeletons that haunt the empty walls of this closet heart.

I'm sorry.
I just can't right now.
I can't sit back and pretend any more.
I'm not going to pretend to be happy for you.
And I'm sorry.
Because this means I can't talk to you,
At least for right now.
You're being too cheery
And I can't take it.
So I'll have to go for now,
But maybe I'll come crawling back to you at midnight,
Dried salty tears and blood staining my skin
As I beg for you to forgive me.
I'm sorry,
I just can't right now.