Dearest,

How do these feelings exist for someone who has hurt me so bad? You broke me in every form of the word, physically, mentally, emotionally. You hurt my friends. You hurt my family. You hurt classmates, strangers, everyone. Do you make anyone happy? You hurt me and yet I can't just move past it. How do I forgive you if you never gave me anything worth forgiving? It hurts. Life hurts knowing you are there.

Through every turn, I squeeze my eyes shut because I'm scared you are waiting for me. I can't take seeing you again, but no one will ever understand enough to keep us apart. You hurt me in every fiber of my being and I hate it. You have so much power, I want to watch you fall. I want to laugh at your demise, but I'm not allowed to open my mouth. Without having to do anything, you got everyone to sew my mouth shut with barbed wire, ripping and tearing more and more as I try to speak. You've blinded me from everything bad because everything seems insignificant like the world doesn't matter. I can't feel anything anymore. I can't hear the evil in your words, to me they seem like what I deserve. You took my opportunity to grow up slowly and you pushed it into one day. That's all I got. One day to grow up and start taking care of you because if I didn't my life would only become more difficult. It hurts so bad. My forced silence is killing me. I'm not ready to go. I just need you gone. I can't stand to be in the same town, county, state, country, continent, world, universe as you. Leave. Please. I beg of you for just one thing. Untie the wire or unblind me or give me back my childhood or let me feel or let me hear. Maybe I ask too much.

Maybe I should suck it up and forgive you, find your number, text you, love you. I want that. You don't even understand because, despite every sour word and painful hit, I want to be in your life. I want to love you. I blame myself and I want you to forgive me. I don't want to feel so much. I want to have your love and forgiveness and I want to watch you get repeatedly punched in the face and stabbed and brutely torn apart. I want you to suffer the way I suffered, I want everyone to blame you, I want all the pressure to crush you, I want you to be degraded, I want you to be broken, I want you to be punched and kicked and slapped. And I want your love. I want it all. I miss you.

Did we ever get along? Is my memory failing me? Because whenever I unwind the barbed wire enough to speak a single word, I'm told we did. I don't remember it. I don't believe it happened. I only remember the painful fights. I know it wasn't one-sided. I screamed as much as you. I know you cried as well. I'm sure you felt like an outcast too. Why couldn't it all just be normal? None of it is normal. Everything that connects us is messed up, twisted, scrambled, torn, strained, and then poorly taped together just to be broken again.

I hope that all these words have made you think of me, cousin. You aren't my family, not anymore. You lost all rights to me when you told me to die. Or maybe it was when you held a pillow over my face. Maybe it was when you told my best friend that she was worthless. Maybe it was when you slapped me across the face because I didn't want to watch the same movie as you. Maybe it was a combination of all thirteen years of constant torment. Maybe it's that plus the added years of recovery, not for me, I'm not better, it was recovery for everyone else. Recovery I was forced to manage. I am in charge of all of your damage control. I hope you are miserable.

I miss you.

I hope these words have made you think of me,

The one person who treated you correctly

(P.S. I hope you know you've destroyed that forever.)

Life is imagined to be a beautiful blessing, however, I believe that is just a mask disguising our true fate. I like to think there is something after death, but it's difficult. Maybe it's a lack of faith or an over-exposure to atheist beliefs, maybe it's just my skepticism in all things unknown seeping through, but I find it hard to believe that any real afterlife exists in any way other than figments of our imagination personified in the tragedy that is death. However, assuming something does happen when we die, I'd like to believe it was reincarnation. Some way for us to continue living forever in countless forms. Maybe reicarnation is almost scarier than a lack of afterlife, immortal beings living and not having the capability of remembering each lesson learn, doomed to repeat the same fate over and over again. The goal of Hinduism is "salvation from samsara" or the end of reicarnation. The word 'salvation' indicates freedom, maybe reicarnation is something to want escaping from. Maybe there is no happy ending possible.

Whether there is or isn't an afterlife, isn't it terrifying either way? It's an endless circle, we say 'forever' right now and that means 'until death', but in actuality, it means for the rest of time, which is endless. The cycle continues and repeats and has no start nor end, so forever is an insane amount of time. The idea is easy to get lost in, when you push past that initially shock of recognising that death exists and no one knows what happens when it comes, you realize that you are trapped in the loop of time and there is never going to be an escape from that. It's horrifying.

Life, as a whole, is terrifying, death is awaiting us through every choice we make. We cannot escape it. It will never be able to end. I understand a fear of death, I hold one, but that fear isn't necessarily justified because we don't have the secrets of death. A fear of pain is more so justified, it's understandable to not want death because of the pain in may hold. I feel like both those fears are quite different, one is a fear of the unknown (death) and the other is a fear of the pain that comes along with it.

There is so much left to be discovered and most of it we will never know.

The color of the sky;

Vast and wide, longing to stretch over the world and watch us on our separate paths to

greatness.

The color of the sea;

Connecting nations and continents. It's seen everything, yet there is so much left of it

to be discovered.

The color of azure bluets;

Beautiful and delicate.

Fragile and thin.

Perfect and lovable.

The color of blueberries;

Sprouting from bushes for us to enjoy.

The color of life;

The immeasurable sky, the deep seas, the graceful flowers, the delicious

fruits.

Blue;

The color that can never be forgotten. Through happiness and sadness. Through life

and death. Through favoritism and hatred.

Through it all;

Blue.

Heartbreak is a dear friend of mine,

For it finds me whenever broken.

It doesn't rest until I know that it's there,

It doesn't leave until I'm filled with despair.

I'm gasping for air.

Please don't just stare.

My attempt to breathe is a pointless fight,

For I will only fall deeper.

But once again,

I must say heartbreak is my friend,

For it saves my life just to be broken again.