I never really thought I could die. I'm young, and life stretched out for me like an endless expanse of road, the kind found in the country- flat and straight but with so much opportunity and beauty. To think that I would die some day was impossible to me.

I am the embodiment of the teenage cliché.

Yet, by means I will not go into, I now not only recognize I will die, but I know it will be soon. I can't say anything to you while I'm here, but I hope you find this when I'm gone because there are things I need to say, and I need to know they were received.

I'm not quite ready to die.

I have a pile of letters and stories and poems on that little black box you always asked about. You can open it now. Please do. Please read every written word contained inside. I think you might realize some things I never told you.

I have secrets that I don't want to keep.

The box should be sitting on a pile of notebooks. Read those as well. I wrote a lot of beginnings, but no endings. I'll let you do those. Let my characters live out their stories. Please don't let them hang in suspension eternally.

My characters mean more than I do, in the end.

Share my words everywhere you can. Maybe my body can't go on, but in many ways my thoughts can. I don't care if no one knows my name, but I don't want my being to be forgotten. I want to make a difference.

Words are the essence of being.

I don't need a fancy funeral. Donate my organs, let them be helpful. I might be dead, but most of me should still work with a proper system. I want to be cremated. Scatter me in the winds. They say death is an adventure, after all.

Practicality will make me happiest.

Thank you, and I'm sorry.

You'll be fine without me.

You never really needed me.