Dear Author,

Your writing is as cliched as roses are red. As your main character, I feel compelled to tell you that you're sticking to old tropes and it's boring for everyone involved. Damaged girl from a rocky upbringing, marries young, lives in misery, has a kid, blah blah blah. It's been written before and with more artistic flair than your sardonic drivel.

Your readers are giving up early -- they know how books like this end. Even you are bored of making decisions, editing, starting again. Look, we're all exhausted. So either put up the pen and toss me into the fire or write something real. Have me live a life that means something.

Yours truly,

You

I knew I hated you and a child would never change you, but I didn't know how to leave. So I grew a person to share in my misery. I knew that was selfish but I knew better how to lie to myself, "Everything will work out for the best".

I knew that my troubles lived in my mind and within our bed and within our conversations but I convinced us to move 1,000 miles away to escape those troubles. The troubles grew more hateful but now I was away from the help of friends, and away from the shame of their knowing.

I knew our son was not thriving with you but you did not know how to earn money, and we were hungry. I left you two alone and hoped for the best and let you spend all the money I made, because that would make you happy. But I knew that the happiness didn't last long and niether did the food.

I knew the 1,000 mile journey to our home would mean a lower cost of living which we needed now that you knew that working was less frustrating than staying home with a baby. I didn't know then that our time together was almost over but the hopelessness was not.

I knew that I would put up with all of your actions because everyone knows children need two parents. But I didn't know that you were capable of demanding sex, indifferent of my clearly stated disgust and pain. And it was then, that I knew where I drew the line.

I knew that being a single mother would be difficult but I had no idea I'd be so hungry and so poor and so depressed.

I jokingly thought to myself today "I'm so hungry I might could give a blow job for a cart of groceries" and then I realized, I couldn't or I'd still be with you.

And a few hours later, hungrier still, I wondered if I ever really knew anything at all.