Dear 17 year old me,

I want you to know that what you're going through, what feels like the worst thing that has ever happened to you, will become the best thing that you have ever survived.

Tебе до нее не дотянуть.

I consume caffeine and nicotine, hoping that's enough to keep me alive.

Everything is fine.

So what's new with you?

Well let me see mother. I've become so obsessed with beauty that I haven't eaten in days, and the two times I did eat, I went to the bathroom and put two fingers down my throat. I'm not proud of it, but I can no longer live this life. I can no longer be around you and feel the disappointment, the silent judgement of how perfectly imperfect I am. I know you compare us, and I know that in your eyes she is beautiful, because she never let the food she ate destroy her. And then you look at me, the slightly bigger figure next to her, and you wonder where you went wrong. You don't realize this but that look kills me. I guess all children carry in their DNA the desire to gain the approval of their parents. I never thought of myself as this person, as someone who would become so affected by the outside world that I'd turn my insides inside out. I never thought I'd get here, but right now the end justifies the means. What else is new? I've been smoking a lot lately, it's my way of controlling myself. In fact, there is hardly a time when you wont find me with a cigarette in my hand. I know it's bad for me but right now it feels like the only thing that isn't bad at all. Don't worry, I'll wash all my clothes before I come home so you'll never know. And something else? I am dreading friday. I know that you both are excited but all I feel is mortification. The Caribbean is for beautiful people, and I have never been less beautiful in my life.

I'm sorry mother, for not being able to say these words out loud. Instead I say: Everything is fine.

Free

'Then I would ask you how you would describe yourself in only one word... but I already found it. Because I also have to give ONE word for the type of person I admire, and I really do admire you. You seem to me a very strong and self-confident young woman, one who knows what she wants and fights for what she wants. You travel a lot, you’re not afraid of taking chances. And then he said : « free », and I think that word describes you perfectly.'

The sadness

The inexplicable sadness is back, after weeks, maybe even months, of letting me live. I foolishly believed that maybe this time the wind took it away, far, far far away, maybe over to some other open window, where it invaded another girls life, eating her from the inside, leaving nothing but the desire of destruction under her fingertips. Maybe it did blow that way, but she was too smart, she found a way to trick it back outside, and it flew around like an orphan only to find a window and a dim light it recognized, and it came back, haunting me with its dreadful silence.

The tale of an alcoholic.

'I'm an alcoholic', he says, and I listen intently as I look into the mirror of my past. 'Do you get along with your father?' 'No' my lips whisper, but only inside my head. I could never say it out loud, to him, to myself, to anyone in the world. Because once words are out, the wind carries them across to places, and then they no longer belong to you, they belong to the world, and it has authority over them as a father might have authority over a child. He talks, and he notices my silence, and the anger rises in me as my thoughts lead to only one resolution. Put your beer glass down, I command, silently of course, put it down and go home to your children. How dare you? How dare you pity yourself as you drown into the forgetful state of your master, the drink inside your hands? Your children need you, your family needs you, and I would have needed you if it so happened that you were him, the father who forgot me as he raised his drink to his lips. Go home.

Most people say that what they want most in life is to be happy. I just want to be inspired; whether that's happy, or sad.

Deja fucking vù

And this all feels a little too familiar, being assessed not by who I am, but by who I was. I guess I never realized that a slope in my past, a slope when I was a child, could bring me down today. How do you deal with rejection? I guess you just move past it, feeling a little less worthy than you did before. I am just so fucking tired for apologizing for being myself. I feel like I'm saying 'I'm sorry for being real'.

It's not crazy, it's pathetic.

So stop.