You always found writing as a form of comfort,

and that is something that we still share in common.  

Nothing is more cathartic than intertwining ink and paper into a beautiful ballad

when the outside world isn't as beautiful.

There was still snow in January and February,

and it seemed like a miracle considering where we live.

Hope was alive in the beginning of the new year.

 

But soon, I could feel that you've been crying:

You're itching to shred up the pieces that have you at peace.

I see you when you write in your journal about Mom around the springtime,

and how you still don't understand why she left us

when the flowers began to blossom.

You haven’t spoke to her in a while,

and you don’t know if it’s worth trying to track her down

and bloom a relationship

 

I can't help but swallow the lump in my throat

when I see you hopelessly gazing at the boy you loved across the classroom,

and how you knew he snuck glances of you as well.

I can feel your paper mache heart stripping as you two lock eyes

You both couldn’t bring yourself to take the initiative,

afraid of repeating what happened last year.

 

Alas, you keep on as summer approaches and high school graduation

and around the corner.

I remember you laying in the hydrous of your sadness,

staining my pillowcase with the remembrance of your friends.

It is more than heartbreaking to imagine you guys living

within coordinates you all have yet

to adjust to

 

but it is easier to embrace the

smiling unfamiliarities

whose name you don't

know yet,

that new face sleeping in the same room as you

 

because to know their name

is to know their favorite color,

it is to know the foods they are allergic too,

to learn what breed their first dog was,

and the time they crashed their siblings car backing up into a lampost

 

because it won't tear you in bits when they leave if you don't know who they are

 

You are in the middle of  an adolescent catastrophe

with who you are and who you need to be in order to feel at ease

as the bitter fall arises

I can tell that your mind is unlacing at practical seams

when your spilled ink has become just as corrupt as you are

when the summer comes to an end

 

You may not think so, but I am there:

 

I am there somewhere in the void of your broken heart and torn journal pages

 

I am here to tell you that you are better and healthier in college.

You met a few friends and got donuts in the middle of the night with each other

when everyone else was getting wasted out of their minds.

You went to the third floor of your building

and danced in the hallway like a happy maniac with those friends

when there was no music even playing.

Your family is redecorating the house,

and they can't wait for Fall Break to come

so they can pick you up and show you the new furniture they bought.

 

The future is a wonderful place, so I beg of you, if there is one piece of writing you want to set fire to, let it be the suicide note on the corner of your bed.

Next, I want you call up that boy you love, because turns out, he still loves you too

He travels up to see you in the fall,

and kisses you like you two were destined to be together, because he swore to god that guys were and that last year, the timing was simply bad.

 

The Winter hits like a bullet when you hear your father is in the hospital

due to a nervous breakdown, and you are hours away from home.

It seemed that everything that had been going right

suddenly backlashed like a slap to the face.

Reality becomes cruel when you see everyone at home crying.

Your little brother was hurting the most,

and eventually everyone at home realized

he couldn’t control how he acted and felt.

We didn’t understand why, until the diagnosis “Autism”

became a familiar term the doctors used.

 

But Selena, I am here to say that the end of this year, is not the end of the world.

Dad is walking again and your little brother is getting the help he needs.

 

Everyone is learning to smile again, so I want to take that smile into 2017.

I want you to begin writing again.

I want you to write about this year,

and how it changed you and everything that you learned.

I want you to write that regardless of what has happened,

why you are glad to be breathing in this life-

in this body that you will soon cherish like a flower in the desert.

Let it be known that you are here, and here to stay

and better things are to come