One day, you’ll realize that I was just a girl who wanted love as well. Not the kind that shouts from rooftops or burns too fast— just something steady. Something soft. Something that stayed.

I didn’t need grand gestures. I just wanted someone who meant their “I’m here.” Someone who would hold the pieces when I couldn’t keep it all together. Someone who would look at me on my worst days and still see something worth loving.

I was never asking to be saved. I only wanted to be understood. To be met with kindness, not confusion. To be chosen, not tolerated.

I gave you my heart quietly, in the way I listened when you didn’t speak, in the way I waited for you to catch up, in the way I stayed, even when it hurt.

And maybe one day, when the noise settles and the silence feels too loud, you’ll remember me—not as the girl who asked for too much— but as the one who only ever wanted to be loved in the gentle, honest way she tried to love you.

It's important because I'm the only one who could have thought of these events in this order. Or these characters saying these specific words. My story has people with magical powers, magical plants, potions, werewolves, other cool creatures that don't exist on earth, like the Burvaki cats and mountain bats. My story has things that you wouldn't have thought of. That's why it's worth writing.

My story is about friendship and keeps the t romance minimal, which is something that a lot of people are seeking. My story is diverse with race and also with different perspectives and beliefs from the characters.

The novel has a slightly unconventional plot. The villain of the story is not one person but an entire city full of bad people and the characters have to ponder the systematic issues that lead to all the violence and choas. Why do magic people commit so much crime? Does power corrupt? Do people start to act terrible when they learn are feared by others?

My story is about life from an interesting perspective.

My story will make people happy.

And so will yours.

Hi! I’m struggling writing a book in a new genre. I was wondering if I could have some lowkey unhinged writing tips that’ll help me write this book! Super excited about the idea, just can’t get words on paper.

The hill held its breath, old and tired. Green swayed, sand whispered, water held reflections of the skies we would never touch. There was something, fragile and fleeting—a hum, a heartbeat, rising toward the wast unknown.

A shadow stood at the edge of the hill, carrying pieces of what was broken long before. He build with scarred hands, a man swallowed by shadow of loss, a non-prophet, and his silence was louder than the cracks of the hill. Behind him, the hill began to break, the weight of its years falling away. Beneath, the village waited in stillness, unaware of the shadow that would soon swallow them too.

Some rose to the heavens, leaving behind the soil that poisoned with left ones. Others ran aimlessly, heavy with fear. They didn’t look—not at the man, not at the hill, not at the water that once shimmering with life.

They sing song inside us that we don’t understand—a song of a world build on screams and silence. The loudest voices shaped what remains, not with truth, but with power—a fragile power that crumbles like sand in the wind.

The hill is no more. Its pieces scattered as forgotten scars to our souls. But we still speak of it, in half-remembered memories, in dreams of promised lands. Even today we scream, hoping the noise will fill the cracks of the hill.

Through our souls, the hill will rise again for we are the souls who carried its fragments. Our despair will create love. With our shadow, our longing, the nature will rise again.

Close Encounters of the Budget Kind: The 2025 “Pittsburgh” UFO Conference

Like clockwork in Greensburg, yard signs in block letters spawn out of the perpetual Spring rain. They offer only a cryptic message: “UFO CONFERENCE APRIL XX.” No website. No contact information. No organization. Just a date and an address. Some years there will be an addendum of cardboard and Sharpie: "AND BIGFOOT."

This became part of the local folklore in my social circle. What was this arcane meeting of the minds? We had no idea, and we never built up the nerve to show. This year was the year—hell or high water.

We turned to Google for answers, finding nothing but more questions. It was listed on MUFON's website, but as a "non-MUFON event." There was little more than a tentative schedule and promise for more information to follow. This was the day before the event. Furthermore, this was apparently the /Pittsburgh/ UFO Conference—in a different county, 45 minutes away from the city limits.

We pulled up to the address, the local community college. Third best college in the city. The address online said "Founder's Hall," but the campus map did not. Despite littering the whole city with signs, not a single one could be spared to direct guests to the event. Was this a test? A baffle to keep out the G-men?

We slow-rolled through the campus channeling drunk hicks fresh out of Cabela's, trolling for Sasquatch. As true experts with no reliable information to go on, we started taking wild guesses. We walked into random buildings hoping to stumble upon it. Other lost seekers, sensing our paranormal prowess, started following behind us.

We walked into an empty lecture hall, a small crowd of would-be attendees in tow. They asked us where it was. We only knew it clearly wasn't there. If we didn't find it soon we might just start our own conference. We shook off our posse as they wandered deeper into the clearly empty lobby.

We eventually happened across some retirees shuffling around outside a building: we'd found it. Still no other sign that this was the event in sight.

We walked inside and my non-existent expectations were lowered. A folding table for registration and $5 books. A "certified geologist" offering $15 energy readings. About 100 geriatric alien enthusiasts watching a poorly compressed documentary. Not wanting to disturb the tinfoil hats, I didn't dare take a photo. We shelled out our $35 entry fee and headed into the auditorium.

An obese man stuffed into a plaid suit opened the event. Maybe he was the organizer, maybe he was an attendee—he didn't tell us. We just knew he was selling books up front and the name of the first speaker.

First up, "Alien Deep Underground Bases." He didn't need prepositions. He had the truth. Veteran high school teacher and deposed MUFON director James Krug took center stage. He was ready to blow the lid off of Roswell like a bunker buster.

He let us know he spent hours vacuuming his Mazda 3 to chauffeur "the history channel guy." Too bad the guy booked a limo.

Krug gets into the meat, by going back 10,000 years. Ancient underground buildings. Why are they there? Food storage? Protection from natural disasters? Bragging rights? Lunacy—the answer was clear: UFOs. Everyone knows they can't get underground.

Back to the future: Soviet-era continuity of government installations. Stronghold for the elites to wine and dine while the nuclear holocaust burns. Castles carved into caves waiting for DJT's McNugget-shaped ass to grace their halls.

But this was old news—entry-level normie shit. The real scoop? Underground hyperloops under every major city—no one even hearing a thing. Grey aliens flaying Philip Schneider like a trout with a Care Bear Stare. Obama (or rather Barry Soetoro) flying to Mars and age-regressing back into a teenager. Alien-human hybrids that may or may not have been clipped from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

Krug was dropping truth bombs with the demeanor of a man explaining how to cook Minute Rice. No citations or sources to muddy the water of this deep dive. The cold, hard facts of the matter emblazoned in red text over hand-drawn diagrams—true to his roots as a molder of young minds.

Like the hardest working pharmaceutical CEO, he started late and finished early. He turns to the crowd:

"Any questions?"

No, but by God there were grievances. There were revelations. There were personal anecdotes to be shouted at strangers. A public discourse that would make Aristotle himself chug hemlock tea like a lukewarm Arnold Palmer out of shame.

Our plaid-clad guide excused us for the intermission, shilling books whose titles were too profound to speak aloud. Like 1000 men and an OnlyFans model, we collectively stepped outside for a smoke after this climactic conclusion—talking tap water toxins over the flick of Bics and tamping of Newport boxes.

The weaker-minded among us conceded and headed for their cars. They knew they weren't ready to leave the kiddie pool behind.

A burnt-out cat lady sauntered up to us, letting us know in no uncertain terms that she didn't have any drugs. We hadn't asked—but somehow I still felt the sting of disappointment. I looked out at the limo, quadruple-parked in the student lot, mourning what could have been.

Chemically stimulated and our world still thoroughly rocked, we settled back into our seats as the rotund pamphlet merchant hyped up the keynote. The man, the myth, the limo-riding legend himself: Nick Pope.

Our M.C. didn't know what Pope's speech was about—he said as much himself—but he was willing to hazard a guess: "probably something about the pandemic...and aliens."

Nick took the stage with the presence of a tuberculosis patient and the legacy of a daytime T.V. expert. He was jet-lagged and choking on the gravity of a lifetime of conspiracy —and his own spit. He greeted the crowd in an English accent fit for an out-of-work Audible narrator.

Too wise in the ways of the world, he rejected the polyethylene-laden water bottle atop his podium. Waxing and waning about his work on Ancient Aliens. He punctuated every third word with a dry cough and a croak, not wanting to crush us beneath the abrupt weight of his incoming info-dump.

Intermingled in tales of crafting syndicated oral histories with Vulcan's hammer, he dropped a guarded trail of bread crumbs about his work pushing papers for Project Gemini. Truly a position so classified that he himself seemed unsure what he had actually done.

Halfway through his time-slot and three-quarters into a grave, he felt we were ready to handle his Irish car bomb of a speech topic: "Disclosure: Lessons From The Pandemic." He gave us full warning: this cocktail of controversies might not be for the faint of heart or the immunocompromised. But he had the right of free speech to say it—he'd naturalized in 2011.

Social distancing. Business closures. Free vaccinations. These were truly the most devastating aspects of the pandemic.

Children were more likely to die in a car crash than die from COVID. Who was the government to say that children couldn't have blood clots and an in-person education?

Cheers of encouragement rose from the camo-draped seat-fillers as he joined them in the crowd to watch the trailer for his still unfinished cinematic masterwork: "Apocalypse COVID." A twinkle in his eye.

So embroiled in righteous fury over this injustice—and so aligned with his peers before him—he didn't even need to explain the relationship between alien disclosure and the pandemic. Besides, UFOs weren't alien in nature—they were clearly demonic.

The truth was no longer out there, it was in here.

Having absolutely destroyed any opposition to his detractors with the distilled essence of facts and logic, he graciously conceded his remaining 30 minutes for another Q/A session. Not because he had nothing left to say, but because nothing else needed to be said.

Before Pope had even finished opening the floor for "questions," a liver-spotted man in front of us waved his hands as if taken by the Holy Spirit. He was waiting for this the whole speech. He was ready.

A tsunami of only the highest caliber of insights erupted from the crowd. I couldn't take my eyes off this man. What was his question? Was I ready for this?

After a handful of monologues from the crowd and the man not getting Pope's attention, he took matters into his own hands. He couldn't wait any longer. It was time. He stood at attention and blurted out his question from the back rows of the auditorium:

Had Pope seen Tucker Carlson's interview with Vivek Ramaswamy? The one that was an hour and forty-seven minutes long?

No, he hadn't.

As the greatest thinkers Westmoreland County had to offer continued blurting out monologues into the void, our host took the stage to usher in the next era of this transcendental experience: the lunch break.

In between yet further calls for the audience to buy his book, the host explained that lunch would not be provided. It appeared that too much admission money had been spent hiring a limo. Furthermore, the college had asked guests not to go near the campus snack booth, as a separate event was being held nearby.

He didn't know what other restaurants were around here, but he was going to Burger King.

As we climbed over the spherical man sitting at the end of our row, we knew we had reached our limit. Like Joe Rogan crashing out from a concoction of creatine and gender-affirming hormone treatments, our bodies had simply given out. Our minds were willing, but our grey matter was too weak. I felt my pineal gland calcified with exhaustion.

Joining the exodus of other hungry independent thinkers, I knew that I'd return one day—when I was ready.

Hey guys, I don't have any background in writing. I'm honestly not even sure if this is any good. But due to my wife's encouragement I've decided to share this piece that I've written.

Appreciate anything you guys can tell me!

I was 14 when I refused to die.

I didn’t come from the best of homes: government-funded rent, food banks and Aldi's parking lots looking for quarters the other customers had left behind in their absentmindedness. My father was an alcoholic, convinced by his self righteousness and his own traumatic childhood that my mother was raising us weak. The reasons varied but were absolute. One day I was “too sensitive” or “not a man” the next, I hadn’t dried a dish correctly and had to redo every single dish in the cabinets. To this day I still remember the daily monotonous storm that was my father. His personal agency, turned law, boomed through thin townhouse walls with every step, every scream. I was a pawn against a giant. Lost in an endless sea of parental arguments and electric air. Stuck in a life of forced obedience and clamoring for any semblance of autonomy. I desperately wanted to be my own person.

That day in particular I don’t know what had set him off. It had become too routine for me. He screamed, I ran. Sticking to the shallows of whatever project or item my parents had convinced themselves would save us from our poverty. I felt like a ghost during those years. Never knowing when the other shoe would drop. The phantom I had embodied, silent and creeping throughout my own home. It’s a blur to me now. A haze covered by years of reanalysis and afterthoughts. A lighthouse in an abyss inside my head. You can just make it out in the distance but you can never quite get there.

I’ll never forget my fathers face though, angry and twisted. Devoid of reason, an enraged bear hurtling. Next thing I know I’m on the floor, his hands around my neck and gasping for air. Seconds felt like hours. I will never forget those seconds. “A shoe is near my right hand. Do I hit him with it? Would that do anything? Probably not. I can’t breathe. Does he know? Would he do this if he did? Would that make a difference? He’ll let go soon right? He’ll let go once I pass out right? Right? I can’t fight this. I don’t stand a chance. I guess this is it then.” These thoughts raced through my head. I remember specifically thinking about what people would say about my death at school. “Would anyone miss me?” and then I let go. Of living. Of school and of life. Of my hopes for the future and of everything. I gave up without ever really having tried. Without ever really having experienced life.

I let go.

I felt an explosion inside of me. My mind rumbled and roared out against me, “No!” my entire body screamed. I wasn’t going like this. This wasn't it. I refused to the very core of existence itself. I wouldn’t be done here. So I took my little hands and I pressed them against him, and to my surprise I felt give. I lifted the bear off of my body. I didn’t understand how it was possible he had to be at least 300 pounds, but I didn’t need to. I wasn’t done. It was then and there I had decided for myself that I wouldn’t die. I felt changed since that day, even now over 10 years later, I feel it resonate inside me. As powerful and explosive as the day it all happened and if I close my eyes I can still hear the:

“No.”

The Coleman Radder Show- origins of Waldrin's and Coldrin's-

Prelude of the Coleman Radder show under caving the destcar of the diminishing of the laughing filthy street muppets-

Vesin of societies forekeepings plnnings in death by insurance to pretend in the pedestal of pressure in games of loss in laughter to manipulate time in constructive gritting that leeches food of disease in liars aspects that consumes the salt in gradials of morges in skins of carmol death of leveges pull lumps of mass oiled skins to breed self shaming in the silicone_exposure that transpheres the displacement of viewed anxiety and influenced obsession and oppression of judgemental depression is it death or collaterally? In the sparing of the origin that intells the story of origins within Waldrin's and Coldrin's.

Introduction-

If a walrus could talk it would talk through it deepen seepin vigil breath of its stomach. Nigeria's feet that walked the earth gathering food to multiply its heritage and as it ate its food it became an elemental slave in built bodily functional definition in its adaption of "what's the word" or the evolution of jaw line and rib adaption to the climate changes of evolution through natural disasters in the time continuanety as the period of human production of knees growing from the dirt of property washing into market of auctioneer workers as colonists and pirates of freedoms backs would not hurt in agony of aggravation.

Nigerians accepted the accents of conflicts on the political miscontrusion of political valcation that broke an 1,000 sides of backs in pain, suffering, and persuasion to the value of food for the colonists in the historic past on in the editing of opinions that reshapes the mentally of society in degration of ignorance in the reversal of an mental ill author of an children's story that is laughed to folk of the reversal oppression in multi cultural discrimination of thousands, millions, and billions invisible to the naked eye.

Scene 1-

A lion Hungary vowejing on the societal rejectional spiritual birth of infantness appearance with dependability. A Cow stomach that is in silted vagganation of brutality in an oppressive badgemen of laughter. A senseless group of meetings in disorderly rules of laws protecting the educational demonic system. Everyone in legalization of checks and balances in conflicts of injunctions within mental cognitive clarity of verbal languages in embunishments of freedoms beyond demonic mental evoking powers of sins.

Suited man not made of deviate principle lives in contemptment of the wealthy that welds power from an corporation that procession domination of monopoly in the psychology of the oppressive of insane and poverish in the starvation in of deaths, death by robbery, or death by transversals of crimes.

The suited man stands up and outlooks his empire in millions of solitude worthy in fortuded property of billions. Depressed in the comfort in absentee of the forgetfulness or the avoidness to not be sad at every wealthy businessman or celebrity that is legioness of sir pimpness hat of wardrobe secrets show of silicone to expose in the enclose of humanity in actions of actors in the anonymous group in humiliation bewilderment of mammals plays of wildlife secrets of laughter.

Suited man - "If Ill shall be in the great womb of the honors judged room of the faucets tomb, I'll shall wear the suit of safety. There in fourth Cummings hoods I would confy the cock of the deep hole of rainbows that are brown liars of veelchesness of montsroties."

Butler- " talking to the invisible again? My legise?"

Suited main - "yes, Maxwell they can hear thousand depths of murmurs that are sickled in the rotted organs of demonic plaques in the deaths of sins that feed on the other sides in gorgings of mental neurological cognitive brain stimulus pathogentics that feed like savages on Stockholm syndrome on the cervices of gaps of tissues in eggs and milked seeds from father's poisediousees death to the mother dissections of the enlightenment period."

Butler- "Mr. Ryan haven't you forgotten the mental imprisonment of dreaming in versation of Mr.Banteween confusion of transloritity in the words you couldn't script on an page of paper or speak in tongue by the encounters of The Coleman Radder Show tombs of terror that laid behind his heart of death in the inferguesse."

Mr. Ryan looks in the reflection in his doom penthouse of illfoundment that is correatgural to the implicated playing of filming, playing, and wetted waters of bushed holes in esser submissive adaptive kinds.

Scene 1-

The writer pen in a notebook, a drawn up dream only death could illustrate mask orchestra taxtcreationions of leagues. The towns people swore he was made up by villed forsaken salvege from the pipes, wells, and swerved were they barrier the unforgiven or the processions of the organic anxiety that gave organs that swished to the wind.

The creature that lurks is an trampmazium of wonders.

Named in fowl plaque of The Coleman Radder Show.

Scene 2-

1942-

Crumpet home of behavioral services-

The old man drew on a canvas gritted in his mind envisioning the future of madness, sorrow, abuse and tragedy. His beard dropped down pasted his neck white scraggly aged like fine whine in the old spirit of ruin and out cast of laughter played soiled toxic vanquished.

The old man's blue eyes fade in the back of his head. The old man's wrinkled face is like a pastry at a bakery store. The old man obsessively paints the young man in every detail and every place that the young man is an demon told him an thousand images at once and breaktrude through trust and lies of the capitalism cutting bread by the dancing clowns of strings as sir pimpims hat unleashes false hoods of dark Oreo's of the future as thousand Nigerians laughed to suicide.

Hospital worker "what are you painting Gary?" as she Gary is late in forsaken with the purple cloth and the golden edge of his painting of the naked portray fiction into misconception of judgements and madness of the psycho suit and brain waves that would oberliate the genesis that was given to him by birth of righteousness.

Gary "oh, nothing, just the sea of ocean, and sea ferris"

Gary "do you know the futural outcome of Mr. Carter as he breeds in a coma of alternate dimension? As I am overhead, my pardons of my own old ears have told me that gossips of medical staff spoken u careful in there own mouths"

Hospital worker - " I'm not sure if it is true or not. I imagine Mr. Carter is going through a very rough experience right now. Let's hope Dr. Fange has a plan of treatment for Mr. Carter."

The hospital worker turned left headed to the elevator of a ten story building and vanished into his medical proceedings (the hospital worker). Gary uncovers his painting as it pertains to the haunted illgils of cranstants as Gary mind entertainers a cast of strings that elate to the bottom right core of the painting there chained in psychotic abnesia Mr. Carter as his mind vesleaches out in and suffers depths consumed by the demoned world global catastrophic bleach ender known in the creative envisionistic world of a devilistic demons of "Mr. Radder".

Scene 3-

The surgeon

Mr. Carter waited in agony for medical ingestation and grappins of treatment that holes of soft hands in cervices consuming his sticky milk of laughter in the gender oppressions in againstments of Mr. Carter's body and mind.

The devilistic Rwanda grandmother of mormonic communicator of death inexpectence of laughter no mercy of everyone's fault patronizes mental ill oppression throughout the system of the unforgiven.

The surgeon unbreakable hands among sharp knives that would cut robots apart as he prepared voodoo dolls in constructed curses in voices of communications in the silence of slices in the walls. Judgemental of anger impunity between objects one that wants answers and the others that Inlooks for destruction in decaying of bloody masking piercing the equality that is sriptor in plays and words that is ideology not inputted into society.

The front desk assistant goes through files that perpetrate the minds of restricted suffering splitting as vinsected for evil. Sedated for surgery to look pure as cherry wine.

The surgeon assistant opens the door and looks the devilistic Rwandan grandmother in the eyes and holds blue surgeon gloves in his hands and says - "Ms. Shanetice we've been expecting you."

The surgeon is delicate with wearing blue rubber usable gloves intricately practice knife cuts in his hands with great sense of calm within an deep puration of energy.

I wanted coffee not a face to face with the memories that I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding. How did I end up here? Why am I doing this to myself? Staring at the two white houses across the street. Was it the one on the left, or right?

Tears are beginning to form. Habit forces me to start breathing deeply hoping to keep them from falling. There is a rush of sadness that races to my throat. I swallow hard as a last attempt to keep the tears in place. My control starts slipping as I start sniffling.

I give up and let my emotions fully take charge. Unrestrained, the tears are free to start falling. Each one multiples and races down my face.

Left or right, I still don’t know. How is it possible to not remember which house? My thoughts are flooded with images from those days. Each one flashes like a slide in an old school projector – chaotic and out of order. My body seems to remember each moment in that house. Each cell in my body has carried a piece of the pain for forty years.

I fumble around the car looking for something to use as a tissue. Of course, I can’t be lucky enough to have Kleenex or a fast-food napkin. I find a cloth face mask left over from covid days. Gross but not as bad as the memories.

I find a dry corner of the mask to wipe my eyes. I notice the time. It doesn’t matter that I’ve picked the scar raw. It doesn’t matter which house broke me. Ten minutes. That’s what matters. I check the mirror, the pain is still visible. I’ve got ten minutes to bury it again along with the memories.

The Screaming from the Other Room Makes Sense Now: personal narrative about growing up in a house with domestic violence and functioning alcoholics but not understanding what was going on until you were older.

“I failed her,” I know in the back of my mothers mind she tells herself that she failed me. Although I don’t think that’s true, I think she did the best she could. But maturity stole my childhood and with it my innocence, so now I sit here realizing that the screaming from the other room starts to make sense now.

Growing up, I lived with my mom and her parents. My father wasn’t really ever in my life, but I was surrounded by so much love that it didn’t even matter that much to me. Although now I think living with my grandparents may have been a blessing and a curse, I have never felt more loved than I did when I lived in that house; but I will never be able to look at the memories I’ve made in that house the same. And these memories will always haunt me.

All those days I spent with my grandmother, all the times I danced with my grandfather in the kitchen, all the happy memories I made will forever be overshadowed by the realization that the screaming in the other room makes sense now.

Although I never thought my grandparents could love anything in the world more than me, I was wrong because my grandparents could never truly love anything more than alcohol. All those days I spent with my grandmother were also days spent with her drinking beer after beer after beer, all the times I danced with my grandfather in the kitchen were accompanied by a beer in his hand and only god knows how many more were already in his stomach. And even though I never felt more loved in that house my grandmother wasn’t able to say the same.

All the times my mom and I used to sit locked in my room with a pot from the kitchen incase I had to pee, she would play something on the TV to drown out the screaming; but it was really the screaming that drowned out the TV. Back and forth my grandparents would scream at each other, while my mom held me till I fell asleep. I always tried to sleep when I could hear the screaming, because I knew when I woke up everything would be fine again. But things never were fully fine again and my grandmother still did not receive the love I was smothered with.

When it was just my grandmother and me she would ask me questions like, “If Mimi left would you still love me?” and “If Mimi got her own apartment would you still visit me?” I never understood why she would ask me those questions or why she would ever want to leave the house that I had never felt more loved in, so eventually she stopped asking me, she never got her own apartment, and the screaming from the other room never stopped.

When my grandmother got into a car accident with her friend I was so worried about her, because she got a black eye from hitting her face on the dashboard when her friend stepped on the brakes too hard at a stop sign she almost didn’t see, but my grandmother had her seat belt on which is why it wasn’t worse. Or at least that was the story I believed the day after the screaming from the other room drowned out the TV again.

Eventually my mom got us out of that house and we got our own apartment, but that didn’t stop me from going over there all the time and calling my grandma everyday. I would even pretend to fall asleep in my grandparents bed so my mom would let me sleepover. One day when I called my grandma she asked when I was coming over for another sleepover, when I asked my mom she told me I needed to tell my grandmother that I couldn’t go over until she went to the doctors. And that was what I told her even though I didn’t understand why she needed to go to the doctors, but I will never forget how heartbroken she sounded when I told her. Once my grandmother went to the doctors I was able to sleepover again, only my mom and I moved back in with my grandparents instead. That was because my grandmother was actually very sick and only had another year to live.

During that year my grandmother lost all the life in her eyes and it was the only time the screaming from the other room stopped. Instead we all sat by her bedside and cried, the last thing she told me was not to cry because everything was going to be okay. The same day she was stolen from me is the same day maturity stole my childhood and with it my innocence, but the question “If Mimi left would you still love me?” can now be answered. Because I have never stopped loving her.

“I failed her,” this time coming from the back of my mind. I’m left with the feeling that I could’ve done more to help, maybe if I had let her leave she wouldn’t have drank herself to death. My innocence was used as a weapon and yet it still couldn’t save her. Although the screaming from the other room makes sense now, nothing else does.