I'm drowning. Not with water, and not forcfully. I'm drowning myself in words and music to try to numb the pain. It's not working. I can't do it- I can't go on. I'll soon be drowning in my own blood. I'm sorry- I can't do it. It's too much to handle. I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I can't go on. I just can't do it anymore. There's no hope left.

I'm drowning in my tears. I'm drowing and I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE. I don't know why you don't get it- when I say, "I'm fine" or "it's okay, though," I am crying. I am crying out for help but you don't hear. You only hear the mask and don't see the tear-streaks. I'm sorry.

I'm drowning and you don't see it. I'm drowning myself so it doesn't hurt anymore. I listen to music in a volume that I can't hear anything else, I can't hear my own sobs. I drown myself in my words that try to express my feelings but nothing can quite express how I feel. Nothing can ever truly express how I feel.

I don't know how to stop feeling. I don't know how to stop loving you and I'm sorry. You may be the reason for my ultimate downfall. You're so kind and talented and it hurts to see you every day. I always see what we were and what we could never be. All of our plans- gone. The scars that this broken love has caused will haunt me forever. It's like a tattoo that will never go away and that'll haunt me for the rest of my days.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

The light seeps through the school windows in the morning, I watch the sun rise from the band hallway. Here before sunrise, before a lot of the faculty members. The sun is a metaphore for a lot of things. Life, death, love. The sun rises and sets just like life, we live and we die. We die and people mourn for us and are eventually forgotten.

The light is a sign of hope. I don't see any metaphorical light.

It's so much easier said than done.

I don't understand how people have so much hope, how neurotypicals exist... As someone stricken with multiple mental illnesses- I can't fathom a life with hope. I don't understand. It may seem stupid or childish that I can't understand this but I really can't. I'm sorry.

You say, "just open your eyes and see the light," but I don't know how! It's so much easier said than done. And you live 20 miles away and I haven't seen you in 4 months and I miss you so much more than words can express. I love you.

You're one of my reasons for living. You have saved my life on numerous occasions and if it weren't for you- I'd've successfully killed myself a long time ago.

Do you remember that night when I tried to kill myself again and you stayed up with me passed midnight because you were worried that I'd try to kill myself again, when you called me and were just talking to me when I wouldn't speak. You stayed on the call until I fell asleep. You made sure I was safe. No one else has done that- no one else has cared that much.

I know that we're young and "don't know what love is" but I know that I love you. You have started to show me the light and then things got busy and the light faded. I didn't shut it out on purpose, it just happened without my knowing. I'm so sorry. I love you and I didn't mean to. We rarely talk anymore and it hurts.

When you first started talking to me and you said, "I feel like I can really open up to you" that set off so many red flags and then I realized how amazing you and how much I love you. You're like no other person I've ever met.

Your words save lives. You save lives. I'm so sorry, I love you.

I may not be who you think I am.

I am a chameleon. I am who you want me to be. You want a friend who rant to? I'm there. You want someone to cry with? I'm there. I am whoever you need/want me to be.

I'm a shadow of a human. That's what 8th grade and 3 months of high school did to me. It robbed me of everything.

I am no one.

You try to tell me who I am and what I have- what I love to do- but you don't know me. No one does.

I don't anymore.

You say I like books but they just break my heart at the end. You say I like music but sometimes it makes me cry. You say I like my friends but I don't know if they're actually my friends. You say I like fashion but it's just cloth draped over my prison of flesh. You say I like tech and robotics but I don't understand it anymore.

You don't know me. So stop acting like you do.

I don't know me. So stop pretending like I do.

People say, "just be yourself," but I am ever changing and I don't know who I am so how can I be myself?

Sometimes I wonder- if I have multiple personalities. I can be her around that chick and I have to her around him and I can't be her around them so I have to her her.

I'm no one on the inside. I'm everyone on the outside.

I'm only human.

I agree to the terms and conditions

LOL

I love you

The three biggest lies ever told.

Sometimes loving someone means agreeing to terms and conditions that you didn't know existed and laughing with someone into the darkest hours of the morning.

You lied to me. You lied every time you said I love you. You said that you weren't lying and that you really do love me but I can't shake the feeling that all of your pain is because of me and I don't know why.

You say, "I'm sorry- it's not because of you- I don't want to hurt you or say something that isn't true." But I can't get rid of the feeling that it is because of me. I'm sorry.

I don't know how to say it any other way.

You lied to me. And not only you but all of the others. To me- if you say I love you or I still love you it's just a lie and I'm guilty of that.

I told you that I still love you and now it doesn't hurt to think of you anymore. It doesn't hurt. To me- it took a lifetime to get over you and maybe deep down part of me will always love you and that's okay.

Love hurts and I'm sorry that I hurt you. I'm sorry that hurt you and that you're in pain. I didn't mean to. I really really didn't mean to hurt you. Why would I hurt someone that I love? It was an accident. Just like how I accidentally fell in love with you. I didn't mean to- I swear. It just kinda happened.

I'm sorry.

I love you.

It doesn't hurt anymore, you know- when I loved you. It doesn't hurt to think about you anymore. I don't know how long it took or when it stopped hurting and breaking my heart but maybe I just got to the point where I was breaking and it didn't hurt and then I just kept breaking to where I am not. My wrists are mutalated because I am breaking. Maybe it's to speed up the breaking proccess or maybe it's to know that I'm still alive- maybe the pain is what keeps me alive- to make sure I haven't slipped away yet.

Maybe loving you wasn't a mistake. Maybe loving you taught me how to deal with heartbreak in a better way but I haven't found a better way. I don't bother counting the marks. No- one scar for every time I think of him- if that were true my entire body would be covered, there is no pattern- random makes it look like art. Although I can't bring myself to wear short sleeves anymore- maybe that's okay. I practically live in my grey archery hoodie anyway. And I don't know why I hurt myself- maybe it's a way to make sure I'm still alive, to deal with stress and anxiety or maybe something else. I don't know.

People ask why grey is my favorite color- grey is numbness in the midst of the pain, it does not show up in numbers or letters in my mind, it is calming, the cool grey is like a cold river calming my thoughts and sometimes freezing them or clutching them. I don't know how to describe it-

somehow

it

helps

the

pain

be

a little

less

intense.

I trusted you.

I loved you.

Never again.

I've fallen in love twice and it's ended the same way, "I can't do this anymore."

"I'm not sure if I'm depressed. I mean, I'm not sad. But I'm not exactly happy either. I can laugh and joke and smile during the day, but sometimes when I'm alone at night I forget how to feel." -Anonymous

You were the only one who could save me when I tried to kill myself and things just got worse. I thought I could trust you.

"Take a chance on love," they said. "Maybe he'll be different," they said. You were different until I realized that you're just the same as the rest of them.

"I left him because I didn't want him to see me suffer like this." a.r.

That's why I left him. Not why you left me. You left me because- I can't say why but it still hurts.

You meant everything to me,

and maybe that wasn't okay-

maybe I shouldn't've been so attached.

But that who I am.

When I love someone- I love with my whole self.

When I cry, I don't cry for one reason, I cry because of everything.

I tried to completely get rid of the memory of you, but there's a picture I can't erase- the ony picture of us together. I can't rid the memory of you. But I have to. You aren't coming back and I know that.

You just stopped talking to me that day. No notification, nothing.

But maybe that's okay. It teaches me to eventually move on.

Never again.

Never again will I fall in love.

Never again will I trust anyone.

Never again will I try.

Never again will I dress for a guy.

Never again will I do anything to please anyone.

I am my own person and I don't live for others.

You can't control me anymore.

I used to be your puppet, I'd be startled with joy at your name but now I shudder in pain. I used to be a marionette, you controled me and my strings but now? I cut my strings and I hold myself up. You can't stop me.

Never again will I be hurt. I'm too strong for that.

I think I'm falling in love again.

It's not like the first time when I knew what was going on and I didn't know him but now I know him and I don't know what's going on.

He was my first kiss.

(My best friend says it doesn't count though)

I miss him.

I regret what I did on June 27 and it hurts to think about it but I think about it all the time.

He's always the first person I look for in a room, he's always the one I think about and hope he's looking at me. I've noticed it a couple times.

I don't know what I'm doing anymore.

I fall in love so easily and get hurt so easily.

I left him a letter a few months ago and he didn't say anything about it. I just want to know what he thought of it.

I still listen to the songs he said reminded him of me.

I can't listen to the song that reminds me of him anymore- it hurts too much.

Maybe I'm just lonely, like my best friend said, and just maybe I don't actually still love him.

I don't know anymore...

It's been one year. One year from the day you asked me out.

I fell in love with you.

And now there's nothing. You were my first love and nothing can take that away. And now- as I'm sitting here in the band room waiting for my brother at 3:43pm (13 minutes afer schools gotten out) who's playing guitar with a teacher (that I've just now remembered) and I won't get home until probaby 5- as I sit here with almost tears in my eyes and I think to myself- where did I go wrong?

I know the exact moment I went wrong.

June 27th, about 2:07pm, the day I broke up with you.

I've sat here and remembered things-

we had our lives planned out together; we were going to go to college together and get married the month after I graduated and then move into a small apartment before we had kids. We were going to go to your Senior prom together just to say we did- neither of us really actually wanting to go- we were going to do so many things together.

Your friend told me that you told him, "I'm set for life with her."

And now- neither of us have any plans together.

And for a long time- I didn't even plan on making it through high school- and now- I don't know what I'm going to do.

I'm sorry that I screwed up our lives.

I finally realized why I ended it- and I didn't mean to.

I'm so sorry.

It's 3:52 and I don't know what's happening.

I'm sorry.

I want to ask you if today has any meaning to you- if you remember what today would mark. But I can't stand the pain it would bring.

And besides- it's over. There are no feelings left on his side and it's over. I don't know why I still care so much- I really shouldn't.

I'm so sorry.

It hurts to think about you again...

I saw my best friend last night for the first time in 3 months. The second time in 7 months from when we first met. He said, "when you hug me- it's like you're holding on for dear life." I said, "I know if I let go- I won't see you for a long time." He said, "it's nice." I'm afraid to lose him. I love my best friend.

I paint my nails the color that I am feeling. Royal purple for bold and sly, black for depressed, red for flirty, blue/green for- well- that's just my summer color. Right now my nails blend in with my skin, they're that same color. I don't feel anything.

I am numb from the sudden death of student in my school, I am a little upset with my best friend, I am a little excited for the little things in life- everything cancells out leaving me with the numbness my depression brings.

Let me stop there and let's back this up.

I know my writing is depressing. I know my writing isn't always good. But I try. And that's all that matters. This isn't a story about my old love or my mental illnesses. This isn't a story about anything. It's a letter to you. The reader.

Dear you,

I know you're there- I see you. I know that whatever you're going throug sucks. I know it hurts but it'll get better. I promise. You can't hurt yourself, I mean you can- but whenever you hurt yourself you're hurting me. Please don't... Life hurts. Love hurts. At time it seems like everything sucks and the world is completely against you. I know- I've been there. But not everything is against you. I'm still here for you. The sun still rises and sets and look beautiful, the birds still sing, nature is still beautiful. It's okay to hurt and mourn. But promise me that you'll eventually get back up. Promise me that you'll be okay?

It's okay to not be okay.

I could riddle this letter with depressing quotes. I could fill it with stories of my life and struggles. I'm only 15. I've gone through things that some adults ever will and I haven't gone through nearly as much as my friend Juneau. She's gone through hell and back and she's still smiling as if it were her last day on this earth. (I know you're reading this Juneau- stay strong.)

And that's my advice to you. Stay strong. Through the tears and the hurt and the pain. Stay strong.

If you ever need someone to talk to- I am here for you. I may not respond right away but I'll try to respond as soon as I can.

It's okay to hurt. Stay strong. It's okay to not be okay. Stay strong. It's okay to mourn. Stay strong.

Listen to me- hear me- don't just read these words. Know that what I'm saying is directed at you. I don't know what you're going through but stay strong. It'll end eventually. It'll be over soon. It may not seem like there's light at the end of the tunnel but there is. I promise. And I don't making promises I can't keep....

Stay strong. I support you.

-CJ (writergirl02)