A letter to my younger self: concerning infected wounds

Dear Savannah,

I wish I could write this to you, two weeks since my last letter, and tell you that things get easier and that you stop crying.

Certainly, your family and friends will have moved on. They'll start giving you funny looks when you get emotional. They'll offer up half-baked platitudes about the future and how much potential there is out in the world. When you mention a new co-worker, they'll ask you if you think he's cute, and you'll dig your fingernails into your palms until you bleed to keep from lashing out.

Cutting your hair (something you will have sworn off after an incident in the seventh grade) will start to look like a good idea. You'll consider cutting it short, to the ears - hell, shaving it all off will start to sound relaxing.

You won't eat. The first week of the break-up, you won't eat a thing, and you'll drink so much water that you'll have to pee every twenty minutes. First, it will be because you haven't got an appetite. Then it'll become a fast. Somehow you will convince yourself that God will fix things so long as you can manage to starve yourself until the week is up.

And He won't. You can cry like Hannah in the temple, you can dehydrate yourself with your tears, and you can force yourself to not eat for a week, but nothing is going to change.

I'm not going to tell you to eat. I'm not going to say "take care of yourself".

Mourn.
Grieve.
Scribble on your arm while laughing so hard that you cry.
Freak your family out.

Telling you to do anything else would be hypocritical.

Look, this is a warning. If I thought my letters could reach you, I'd tell you to avoid the musician at all costs. No movie nights. No sharing poetry. Don't get close to him. Don't go over to his house on June 4th.

Do not kiss him.

Do not let him kiss you.

Do not offer him your heart.

Little girl, the crush will go away, and you'll get over it over the summer, but I'm asking you -- I am begging you -- to stay away from him. He's got the sweetest heart and the most gentle hands, and losing him will feel like your lungs are filled with lead.

Oh, if I thought I could reach you, I would take you by the shoulders and shake you until you listened.

It feels so much worse than you could have possibly imagined. And maybe it's God's way of teaching you sympathy, or a lesson. Maybe it's because you mess up. You break the boundaries you set at the beginning. You move too fast and go farther than you ought to.

Savannah, you'll lose your mind over this boy. You will be driving home from church camp with your mother in the passenger's seat when you drive past your sister's high school where he teaches music, and you'll break down in tears. You'll cry over goddamn freeway off ramps that you took with him. You'll cry over Harbor Blvd because it's the street you took to get to his house. You'll cry over shitty 90s music he liked. You'll cry over plays you had planned on reading with him, and movies you had wanted to see because of him, and you'll sob your eyes raw over anything and everything Greek, because he was so proud of his culture and you had learned to say "thank you", just to impress him.

I'm afraid that you (we) get attached way too easily. Our heart is a needy thing, and we so dig our roots into whoever is stupid enough to get close. We say "I love you" too soon, and we move in, unpack our belongings, and start painting the walls before the papers are signed.

And I'm afraid this is going to wreck you. I'm scared that this will be the last straw. It feels like the last straw. It feels like the end of the line. The end of a book. That shitty, unsatisfying kind of ending to a book you don't end up recommending to your friends. Already, the walls have started to be rebuilt and reinforced. I don't want to speak to anyone. I don't want to tell them how I'm doing.

I want to plaster a smile on my face and tell people I'm "okay". I want to become even more of a background piece. People are telling me to do something wild, to stand out more, to be bold. They think that breaking me out of my shell will help me feel better about myself, but all I want to do is sink into the earth. I want to be the person people don't see at all. I want to be a whisper, then a breath, then nothing.

I don't want to be here. I don't want to do anything.

My heart is hurting too much.

I was supposed to be healing, but I think this wound is infected. It's not healing right. Something is desperately wrong inside, and I am petrified.

Jesus, I wish I could stop you from loving him.

A letter to my younger self: concerning scarier fates than being alone.

Dear Savannah,

You'll love a boy and everything will be right.

You'll love a musician and suddenly the world will be alight with symphonies.

You'll love an artist and you'll see colors you don't know the names of.

You'll love a boy and, with a great sigh of relief, you'll stop fretting about the future, so long as his fingers are curled around yours.

And then, little one, as always, you'll find yourself alone. Much, much more alone than you will have felt in a great deal of time.

Oh, and you'll sense it. He'll grow distant, he'll draw back. He'll leave on trips and his schedule will fill up and you will find yourself grasping onto the loose threads of his clothes.

You'll sense it in his kisses. In the lack of his touches.

You'll sense when you have to text him first.

And everyone will tell you that you're imagining it. That he adores you, and that he's only got a lot on his mind.

But you, little one, with your heart well-trained in the art of knowing when someone has had enough of you, will know better. And despite their words, and in spite of that wishful, blind optimism you have crouching in your chest, you'll already be paving those walls back up.

I have nothing for you here but apologies, my dear Savannah. I apologize that two and a half months is the longest relationship you'll get to boast about. I apologize that you'll brag to people about your handsome pianist boyfriend two days before he'll tell you that he doesn't want to do this anymore.

I'm sorry that you won't get a Valentine's day, or a Halloween, or a Christmas with him. I'm sorry that you'll buy tickets to see his favorite show for your one year anniversary and won't even make it to the three month mark.

I'm sorry that you're not the kind of girl to fight for what you want. I'm sorry that you'll let him go as soon as he asks to talk about your relationship. I'm sorry that you will rebel so hard against the idea of guilting him into staying with you that all you'll be able to choke out is "It's okay. I understand. I understand."

I'm sorry that you feel like such a burden that the idea of asking him to reconsider makes you want to vomit.

I'm sorry that it's easier to understand the idea of someone not wanting to be with you than for them to want to stay. I'm sorry that you won't even ask for answers because deep down you already know why.

I'm sorry for the inevitable "plenty of fish in the sea" and "it's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all" spiels you're bound to be inundated with.

I'm sorry that this will be the tipping point in which you really start to consider if there is something inherently wrong with you.

But most of all, I am most sorry that you will be given the taste of love after a long, painful year of becoming content with loneliness, only to have to rebuild your walls all over again.

You'll wonder how in the hell you had managed to let someone get that close to your heart, after you vowed to never let it happen again. Oh, little one, how many times can you rebuild your heart? What will be left of it next time, now that so many pieces have been taken away? It doesn't even look much like a heart anymore. How much longer can you possibly keep this up?

Little girl, please, build your walls even higher. Reinforce them with steel and apprehension. Let no one scale those bricks again. Shoot down intruders. Hold the drawbridge. No one gets in. No one gets out.

Please, little girl, don't let this happen again. I don't know that you can recover from another heartbreak.

Don't fight for it. Don't cling to the threads of his clothing. Don't hold your breath for him to call and tell you he was wrong, that he still wants to be with you, that he was just stressed and wasn't thinking clearly.

Savannah, he left because he didn't want you anymore. There's no point in fighting for something that was never there.

Savannah, I'm sorry you will fall in love, and he will not. I'm sorry that you only know the feeling of being cast aside, and never the feeling of scooped back up. I'm sorry that he will still be the kindest, loveliest boy you will have ever met. I'm sorry you don't get to be angry at him.

I'm sorry that you don't get an "I love you", or an "I was wrong". I'm sorry that you'll watch the greatest feeling you've ever felt slip through your fingers.

I'm sorry that you'll wonder what you did wrong. 

I'm sorry.

I'm so, so sorry.

A letter to my younger self: concerning the boy from far, far, far away

Dear Savannah,

I think the time has finally come where I can tell you about the boy from far away without cringing so hard that my face hurts.

What a stupid thing it is to fall in love at church camp.

Sorry, I know that's going to sound harsh when you're young, but I need you to know that these things never work out.

Never. Ever. Ever. 

And here is a definitive list of why these things will never pan out the way you think they will:

- Boys from other churches live (at a bare minimum) very far away. Others will live very, very far away. [And gas money is expensive in the future, so don't even humor it, kiddo. Save your money for more important things, like late night fast food runs.]

- The ones who bring their guitars and aren't part of a worship team can't actually play. Spare your ear drums.

- And the ones who can play are mostly playing to get attention. They'll play alone under trees, brooding and crooning out obnoxiously bluesy renditions of old worship songs with watery eyes. Don't walk over to comfort them. Literally every other girl on campus will do that for you.

- Something is in the air, and it isn't love. (Hint: it's hormones. It's only hormones.)

There will come a time, Savannah, when you'll read this and say, "Well, of course! Camp crushes are an incredible waste of time!"

And that will be the year that you will get hit out of nowhere by the boy from far, far, far away.

He'll be a musician, and incidentally he'll even be your age (which will be unusual since this will be the year you go as a "counsellor in training", and you'll be stuck in this weird purgatorial age between the adults and the students).

He'll croon out Frank Ocean and John Mayer and you'll find yourself swooning a bit more than you ought to be.

At the end of the week you'll even write down your email for him (because giving him your phone number will seem "too forward" for some bizarre reason), but you'll end up texting anyway.

I'll be honest, I'm having trouble romanticizing this next part, being where I am now. See, at the time, you'll be riding that ridiculous emotional high from camp and everything will have that fuzziness -- a blushing vignette -- over it, so you won't be able to see just how incredibly awkward the situation will look from the outside.

Your friends will humor you for the first week or two, but eventually you'll hear them tip toe around you with things like, "So do you think you'd be happy in a long distance relationship?" and "Is skype even romantic?"

And you'll say yes, because this boy is the closest anyone has gotten to caring about you in a long, long time.

(Jesus, I'm so sorry that that's true. I'm sorry that some totally average boy from Indiana whose idea of getting to know you consists of "What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?" and "Have you ever had sex?" is the closest thing to love you'll feel in a long time.)

You, being you, will doggedly pursue conversation while trying to remain south of the annoying border. You'll ask him about his family, and his favorite pieces of poetry, and what he loves about playing music, and every answer you'll record in your heart as if it's the most precious secret you've ever been offered.

But he won't ask you anything back until you prompt him to, and then it will be something a kindergarten teacher would ask her students. Uninspired, and frankly unthoughtful.

But, my God, you'll persevere. You'll ask him anything you deem important, and occasionally throw in an easy one, just so you don't come off as too intense.

When you find out that he is texting other girls from camp, you'll dismiss it with a "well, we're not dating or anything", despite the fact that he had told you how badly he wanted to kiss you. And how badly you wanted to kiss him.

In fact, that'll be just about all he does say to you. Instead of bothering to get to know you, he'll just talk about the things he would like to do to you.

Savannah, you'll lose months of your life just glued to your phone for that boy. And those are months you'll never get back. You'll go places, like bonfires and parties, but you won't really be there - not really.

When he starts school in August, he'll stop talking to you entirely, too busy with school work and socializing, and whatever the hell one does at college in Indiana. You'll text him and he won't text back for hours, maybe days, and you'll feel like a piece of garbage someone is just too lazy to throw in the dumpster. He'll never give you a goodbye and you'll be left trailing after him with thousands of questions.

You'll try to move on, but your heart will continue to do that stupid skip-beat thing every time you see his name on your phone, and instead you'll end up fighting even harder to keep his interest. You'll text him just to ask him how his day was, and you'll pursue conversation just so he doesn't forget about you.

You'll work so hard at this, that it'll make you never want to fight for anyone ever again. (And unfortunately, that's another story for another time.)

 Two weeks will go by without a single text from him, and you'll officially throw in the towel, after much embarrassment and many pitiful tears. You're friends will call him an asshat (and they'll be absolutely right), and you'll begin to see him as just an ordinary boy.

And then, out of the blue, you'll be sent a picture of a lamp (well, not a picture of a lamp, but rather, there was a lamp in the picture and not much else), paired with a string of words that will make you uncomfortable, then angry. After five minutes without a response, he'll text you to explain that his idiot frat friends took his phone while at a party.

You won't respond.

Another picture with another string of suggestive vocabulary.

Another "apology" on behalf of his "friends'" behavior.

This will be where you will realize a few things about the boy from far, far, far away:

- He is an asshat.

- He's an asshat who apparently doesn't know that blaming his "friends" for dirty messages is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

- He's an asshat who never actually wanted to get to know you, and that's why he didn't give two shits when you told him what your favorite poem was, or bothered to ask you questions of substance when you were trying to get to know each other. All he wanted to do was call you pretty and tell you how badly he wanted to kiss and cuddle with you.

- (You really could never be in a relationship with someone who was allergic to dogs.)

You, being you, will accept his apology. But you, being you, will sever the ties there and finally move on.

Savannah, I write this to you, and it's not eloquent like some of my other letters. It's messy, and vulgar, and it's not filled with flowery metaphors, but it's important for you to know that nothing about this situation is, was, or ever will be romantic. You'll be where I am a year later, looking back and laughing, littering this letter with the word "asshat" because it's the only suitable noun for such a person as the boy from far, far, far away.

Don't be mistaken, you'll absolutely hit a new low point because of this boy, and you will suffer for almost three months. You'll feel more alone than you've felt in a very, very long time.

But little one, if you are reading this after you're heart has been shattered by the boy from far, far, far away, I want you to know that there are a few good things on the horizon waiting for you: two jobs, a play, and Halloween night. (More on those later.)

Forget about boys from Indiana, and boys from camp, and boys who don't handle your heart with care. You are valuable, and there are actually people who will treat you that way. Just hold fast, little one, they are coming.

Love,
Yourself.

Crying Wolf: a poem

Until I was twelve,
I insisted that I was a wolf.
It was only one facet of my
Debilitating social awkwardness,
But it's the one that keeps me up at night
Lately.
Lately,
I've been thinking about
Whether or not it's all that bad to die alone,
Or die at all
(Or die right now, but that's a scary tangent).

Wolves are fascinating
Because wolves travel in packs
-- In tight-knit families,
Fiercely loyal to one another,
Nurturing their wounded,
Willing to go down defending their pack mates.
And yet,
Despite this natural closeness,
Occasionally a wolf will arise,
An unhappy Omega,
A hopeless outcast,
A restless wanderer,
Who will tear themself away from the group
And go on their way
Alone.

I don't sleep well at night
Lately.
Lately,
I've been thinking about
The feeling of hands on my skin,
Fingers caressing my face, my neck,
Warm breath on my cheek.
Instead,
I curl myself around a pillow,
Kiss my own shoulder,
Tuck my own hair behind my own ear,
Press myself up into the corner of the room
And pretend to be held
As I try to fall asleep.

When I was a child,
I never imagined myself as
The Alpha.
Back then,
I didn't think it was possible to
Be anything other than
Placating,
Pleasing,
Practicing my apologies in front of a mirror
-- An Omega.
But now
My feet itch to leave.
This pack is not my own.
This cave is not my home.

I've been looking at plane tickets
Lately.
Lately,
I've been howling at the moon,
Pleading for answers,
Or directions.
"Where are the others?"
"Where is my pack?"
But the moon is a silent guardian
And rarely howls back.

My paws bleed a lot
Lately.
Lately,
I've worn my claws down
Digging in the earth,
Searching for bones
For remnants
For proof that other wolves like me
Have been here.
My hands are sore
From being clasped in prayer too tightly.

I've heard the howls of another wolf
Lately.
Lately,
I've played his howling over in my head
To lull myself to sleep.
I wonder where he is,
If he belongs to another pack already.
He sounds so lonely.
But I don't have the voice
Or the right words
To howl back to him.

The sun is too hot
And my fur too long.
I need to find water.
Where did the trees go?
Why is the earth so dry here?

I burrow under the sheets like a cave
Lately.
Lately,
I don't look both ways
Before crossing the street.
It's gotten easier to pretend
To be happy here,
But at night,
As the moon crests above the trees,
I begin to bristle at my surroundings.
I am the restless wolf,
The tired wolf,
The crying wolf,
The lone (so, so alone) wolf.

I'm better at playing the part
Lately.
Lately,
I'm content with cold sheets
And loveless pillows
But loneliness is an awkward bedfellow.

A letter to my younger self: concerning a good body

Dear Savannah,

I've told you already how people will paint your body with angry hands and cruel colors. I've said that they will tear down your body, bruising you with their harmful remarks, prodding you with every passive aggression.

And I've told you that you will eventually learn to hate your body.

Because that's the easiest explanation. When you're young, you'll have no idea what to think of the curves of your hips, or the soft creases along your torso. You're made up of gentle bends and delicate careening lines. You'll find very few sharp edges, and much fewer points. Everything about you will be rounded off and sanded down.

Your breasts will fill in to the point where you'll feel outlandish for wearing them out in public and wish you could fold them away. Your thighs will rub snugly against each other as you walk, and your hips will sway along to the rhythm.

And all of this will feel so painfully awkward while you're in high school.

Because the pretty girls in high school are slender and lean, narrow chests and tight abdomens, smooth hair.

"Effortless," you'll think to yourself.

Your beautiful friends will tell you how pretty you look some days. They'll point out how nice your butt looks in certain pants. They'll tell you how envious they are of your chest.

None of it will feel quite right. You'll wonder to yourself whether their comments are sincere or if they're being kind to you because they like you. You'll thank them and make a point to hide those features better next time you go out.

And then, little creature, you'll meet a girl with unruly hair and the curves of Aphrodite herself. She'll be something straight out of a Botticelli paint, or a figure that Michelangelo mercifully freed from marble. You'll see her and you'll see those familiar lines, curves and gentle bends, those curls, those soft, bohemian corners; you'll see this girl like your reflection on the surface of a lake.

You'll see her, and she'll be the most lovely thing in the room. When previously you had felt so inexplicably wrong against your backdrop of slender, tight-bodied friends, you'll see her and realize how misguided you were to see yourself as a anything but marvellous.

This will start a quiet revolution inside you. Cautiously, as if you were approaching a sleeping feral beast, you'll admire yourself in the mirrors of your house, taking inventory of those once infernal curves. It'll be a slow progression. The ugly voices in your head from high school will jabber on, but you'll begin to tune them out.

Once you cross that fine threshold into adulthood, your body will start to feel more appropriate and desirable.

Like, hot damn.

I know this is hard to imagine, especially after battling those harmful voices in your head for so long, but there will come a time when you will long to retain the shape of your body.

I'm not saying you won't have rough days. Those are inevitable.

But, little one, you will love the body you have. It's a good body. It's a body that is pleasing to the eye, perhaps even to the touch. There are men who will look at you as if you are a divinity. There are women who will long to have a body as "effortless" as yours.

You've got a heart for strength and for pumping blood through your system. You've got a stomach for poetry and for nourishment. You've got legs to support yourself and to stand up for the downtrodden. You've got hands to hold and to heal.

Sweet little thing, you are valuable and your body is good.

Love,
Yourself

A letter to my younger self: concerning feeling unloved

Dear Savannah,

There are plenty of people who love you without condition or reason. They love you because you're kind to them, or because you listen to them, or because they've watched you grow since you were fresh out of your mother's womb.

There's a sea of people who love you for all of the quirks and flaws and skills and difficulties you have. These people will rally up beside you in adversity and will defiantly take your side when all seems lost.

And yet...

And yet, regardless of all the people who adore you, you'll still look around and ask, "But where is the one? The one who is supposed to make me feel whole? The one who will bundle me up on rainy nights and cuddle me close? Where is the one my heart craves?"

Savannah, I know you're too young (too wholly misunderstanding of the complications that await you), but I ask you to bear with me while I explain:

You'll have your heart broken. First, it'll be the Trickster boy. Eventually it will be the incredibly short-lived flirtation with a boy who lives very far away. (There's another story that will have to wait until I've fully digested it myself.)

You'll have your heart torn to shreds by a boy you hardly know, but who you'll convince yourself is God's choice for you.

And despite these heartbreaks (and perhaps because of them), you'll begin to see boys through narrowed eyes, considering them a lot more closely than you had before. There will be no more of this, "I don't deserve someone like him", but rather "I deserve to be with someone who truly cares".

This is where you'll realize that what you crave is an endangered species.

"I need a boy who loves Christ," you'll say.

But most of the boys you know who "love Christ" speak of women as a right of passage. They're first concern is finding a woman who will be submissive, and their next concern is the state of her virginity. They would rather memorize chapters of Deuteronomy than show love to people who need it. They'll be quick to judge a girl on the length of her shorts rather than on the tenderness of her soul.

"I need a boy who understands my need for art," you'll say.

But most of the boys you know don't know what that even is. The church-going ones will call it idolatry, or vanity, or pointless, or whatever negative adjective suits their fancy at the time. They'll call you selfish when you talk about pursuing your career, your dreams. They'll see you sprouting wings and shoot you down before your feet can even lift off the ground.

You'll ball your fists up tight, eyes puddling with tears, and you'll say, "I need a boy who just..."

And you'll stop there. Because what are you even saying anymore? What do you need from a boy that doesn't contradict itself?

You want

You need a boy who gets you. And that will sound so awfully cliche that you'll want to tear up the words as soon as they leave your lips.

No one will understand, and when they say they do, they don't. Not really. Because everything is very cut and dry for everyone else. Their needs don't contradict each other as much, and they'll be more comfortable with compromise, and they'll be better at other things so it will just work out.

God, if you even found someone who matched your heart, who managed to fill all the empty spaces, who could refill you when you've poured yourself out for others, if someone like that even existed, what would you do? You're inexperienced and scared as all hell. If he touched you, you'd apologize. You've been told how gross and clumsy and plain you are for so long that you wouldn't want him getting anywhere near your body for fear of him running in the opposite direction.

But, oh God, you want to be good enough.

Savannah, I've wondered for a while why you (why I) like the rain. Plenty of people like the rain, I know. It's not exactly ground-breaking to like the rain.

I've decided that you like the rain because there's something weirdly comforting about it. It's almost as if, perhaps, something is out there saying "It's ok, little one. I'm sad with you." Or maybe because there's someone else in the world standing out in the rain with just as heavy and longing a heart as you.

Or maybe you just like wearing big sweaters and how the rain makes your hair stick to your face in a very Jane Austen novel way.

Little one, I don't think we find anyone for us. Because our demands are too unruly and complex, and because boys in real life aren't like boys on pages.

It will get to the point where you'll begin scribbling the word "lonesome" on your arm, as if you need a reminder.

Your friends will tell you that you'll find someone, and that you're too pretty to not fall in love, and that you'll marry someone who is just perfect for you, but little one, I don't think he exists.

One time, I was working on a puzzle with hundreds of pieces, and as I got to the end of the puzzle, I realized I didn't have all of the pieces to finish it. That's how I feel about finding this person. He's the piece that got wedged under the couch or tossed out in a dustpan, or perhaps this puzzle was just mistakenly made without a piece to finish it.

Savannah, I don't want you to think that this pain is intolerable, and though it certainly stings, and though you'll stay up until 3AM on most nights with a restless heart, you as a person are still loved by too many to count.

You are valuable, and I love you. It's okay to cry yourself to sleep. It's okay to be hurt and lonely. We make it through.

Love,
Yourself

A letter to my younger self: concerning incredible smallness (and unrequited love)

Dear little one,

I'm not sure why I keep writing you these dismal letters, and for that I offer up an empty apology. Sometimes I write to you to warn you of the troubles that lie ahead, sometimes I write to tell you that things get better, and sometimes - when my heart is rubbed raw against my ribcage and I've exhausted the ears of those closest to me - I write to you because you're the only one left who will listen.

I'm sorry for writing you about this again. (And I'm sorry that you will eventually grow up to become this girl who apologizes to herself for talking about the aches in her own soul.) I'm sorry that this is what you have to look forward to, and I'm sorry that there's nothing you can do about it.

Things aren't always this bad, and I'd be lying to you if I said that you can't handle it eventually. But there's this hopeless ravine that will grow inside you, a great cavernous maw ready to swallow you up on nights like these.

Why was a heart like yours created without a partner's to match? How could there not be a single heart like yours in all the world?

Is this the curse of the artist? To feel so much and be given so little to feel with another person? To drown in an ocean of your own thoughts with no hopes for rescue, or someone to drown with? Or someone to float with?

God, just someone! Anyone.

Surely, there's someone who can see you for who you are, who can hear you the way you need to be heard. Surely, there's someone like you, with a restless soul who understands the world the way you do. Surely, the world is not all just pretty faces and empty skulls.

Surely, there is someone out there, someone clinging to the same hollow hope, of finding someone alike in heart.

God, there's got to be somebody who feels like I do inside!

Right?

Nights like these are nights where you want to grip your hair and scream until your throat is bloody and your lungs are weak. Tonight is a night of exasperated miserable loneliness and, little one, you will grow only too accustomed to the feel of its icy fingers down your arms.

Empty arms.

Empty bed.

Emptiness.

How are you supposed to survive without someone to hold when this heart was made so obviously to love another? How is this great big world devoid of a partner for you - for me? How can this heart be so hungry for something it has never tasted, and (from what I've seen so far) never will?

I say all this, but I know the wicked truth of it.

This heart has a partner. Only one. Only one person on the face of the planet could love a heart like this in the way that this heart demands.

And he'll never know of this heart's existence, because that's the merciless irony of this life. He'll go on to find someone prettier, thinner, more interesting than you and me. He'll be captivated and she'll be smitten (oh, she'd better be smitten to have snagged a treasure like him) and you and I will be just some passerby on the sidewalk.

Who is he?

Why can't there be more like him?

God, why is this yearning for an impossible person so painful?

God, why was this heart made to feel incomplete and empty?

God, someone tell me, please!

Why do I itch to have lonely lyrics embedded in my skin as a constant reminder of how lonesome I feel? Why does no one understand when I say I'm aching, withering inside my own body? Why does no one care when I cannot stop crying on a Wednesday night because I feel so alone?

Why do I feel so lonely all the time?

Why isn't there anyone out there who knows what is going on inside of me? 

How could I possibly be so alone on this planet that houses billions of people?

I don't have answers for us, Savannah.

You, me - we're valuable. I say that because everyone says that when someone is sad, so I'm saying it to us, even though I don't understand the words anymore.

Love,
Yourself

A letter to my younger self: concerning the little lioness

Dear Savannah,

There is a girl who is terrifying both in her presence and in her absolutely ground-shattering beauty. She's got eyes like the core of the sun and a heart that burns just as hot. The blood that rushes under her skin is full of stories, full of words gone unexpressed.

A lioness. 

She was raised with the wildebeests and the gazelles, but fearing her teeth and her claws, they tore off her mane and withheld her power from her.

"Don't let her know the truth," they chattered to themselves. "She can't know what she is."

And so the queen of the savanna was raised to believe herself a peasant for seventeen long years.

And yet, try as they might to conceal her identity from her, she was always so distinctly different. When the beasts of the earth would stalk too close to her flock - to her haphazard clan - when the vultures would hover above the wounded members of her pride, a deep and unearthly growl could be heard from her chest, an outraged hum that could be felt for miles.

And when her lips did part, teeth bared, eyes gleaming with blood lust and vengeance, a roar did erupt from within her. A warning and a promise to those who wanted to hurt the ones she held close.

Clipped claws, filed down fangs, and mangled mane, yet her roar was defiantly leonine and the world did quake under her paws.

When she roared, the wildebeests and gazelles nearby pricked up their ears, and, realizing they had a predator on their side, a weapon to rely upon, began to trust their own hooves and horns. The growl of the little lioness had made their enemies retreat in fear, but it had given them a new found strength in their own bones.

Soon the wildebeests were not so frightened of the neighbouring hyenas, tigers, and coyotes. They themselves began to fend off attackers. They bared their teeth and roared themselves, becoming more lionlike in the mere presence of their little guardian.

Yet for all she was and didn't yet know, the little lioness could not roar for herself. When a predator would prowl around her, she would tuck her tail and lower her head, submitting herself to the most vicious of attacks.

"Roar at them," her wildebeest family would tell her. "You are more dangerous than them!"

"I cannot roar at them," she would say, ears pressed flat against her head. "I am not a lion. I am a wildebeest, and this is just the order of things."

And so the lioness, though ruthless when defending her family, could not stand up on her own paws and lift her eyes to her attackers.

This story isn't about you, Savannah. This story is about a girl you have watched grow up your whole life. A girl who has, does, and will continue to defend you unto your dying day. A girl who would look up into the eyes of your hard-hearted friends and tell them where to shove their rude remarks.

A girl who developed a spine for both you and herself growing up because you were too timid to stand up for yourself.

She's your bodyguard, your confidant, and the person who would stand by you even if you made an ass of yourself. (And you do. You do that surprisingly often these days.)

Her heart is too big for her narrow ribs, and her arms are disarmingly thin, and she keeps her mane cut short because she hates to have her heart on her sleeve for everyone to jeer at and ridicule, but do not be misled. There's a depth in her, a hurting and a longing to be loved, that cannot be seen from the surface.

Her thoughts will spill out of her mouth in verse, in poems of passion and rage, in a rhythm that makes your heart beat out of tune by comparison.

You will watch her roar for you, for others, for friends who do not deserve her loyalty, for jealous and worrisome wildebeests - and you will wonder how you could possibly share blood with someone so fearsome and terrifying as she.

But Savannah, little wildebeest, I need you - I plead you - to gain your footing and roar for her when she cannot defend herself.

You see, as unabashedly terrifying as she may be, she's got a soft heart and a weary voice when she's attacked.

"Well, I deserve it," she'll say. "They're right. I was wrong to do that."

When you hear this, strap on your shin guards and go hunting. Track down her adversaries and make them shit themselves in fear of hurting her again. Strip them of their claws and carry those parts back to her as an offering of gratitude.

Savannah, your little sister is a remarkable work of art, a cumulation of little dashes of paint on a canvass. She has the entire ocean and every star tucked away in her chest - so many feelings and thoughts and desires. She's an ever-evolving kaleidoscope. She is the best friend you will ever have, and you owe it to her to protect her from the hyenas. Return the favor.

She's the most valuable person you will ever have in your life, and don't you damn forget it.

Love,
Yourself

A letter to my younger self: concerning several important boys

Dear little Savannah,

Good God, will you fall for a bizarre range of boys before you hit twenty.

Some of them - most of them - you will look back on and cringe at the memory. Some of them will leave stains on your heart and mud in your pockets. A lot of them will make you roll your eyes and toss your head and laugh.

And then there are some who you will look back on and grin to yourself, and you'll hug yourself remembering the things they said.

I'll be honest, there are too many boys who float into your life for a moment and leave a sour taste in your mouth when they're gone. There are boys who you will shove away and write warning letters to a younger you about. You'll clench your fists and snarl at the mention of their names, remembering the things they put you through - the way they hurt your friends, your sister.

But the good ones - the important ones - are the ones I want to talk to you about now.

This world is full of shallow, vindictive people, but I want you to know that better ones exist.

They are the furious, loyal defenders. The ones who make it a point to make sure you feel comfortable. The ones who offer to help you find your car during a rainstorm one Halloween night. The ones who defend you when someone else speaks poorly of you behind your back. The ones who respect you and encourage you in the things you love to do.

The ones who defiantly remind you that you look lovely on days when you feel like garbage.

The ones who include you in on jokes and don't belittle you when you don't understand something obvious.

The ones who will go out of their way to make you happy or bring you tea on nights when you're curled up on your couch coughing up lung cookies.

And at first, you won't realize how truly remarkable these boys are. When you're young, your eyes will graze over these fine details and instead crave some fictional romance straight out of a poorly-penned vampire saga.

(Then, when you're here writing to yourself, you'll roll your eyes so far back into your head that you give yourself a migraine, remembering how you brushed aside the sweet, genuine gestures in hopes of finding someone more akin to Edward Cullen. Good grief, what a waste of time!)

Once you're here, though, having seen the world with more observant and critical eyes, you'll appreciate these boys for the remarkable beings that they are.

Because, though these boys are mortal and fleshy, though they make mistakes and are clumsy when trying to be romantic, when you see the world for what it is, you'll finally see how remarkable these boys are. How ground-breaking they are for being genuinely concerned about your heart and your health. The ones who will give you a reassuring squeeze when you recount your eating disorder to them, instead of giving you tips on losing weight like other boys eventually will.

I'm telling you this now because my last few letters have been incredibly dismal and ungrateful.

You won't date these boys. They won't be yours to keep, and you'll be absolutely all right with that. Some of them you won't see romantically, others you will politely admire from a distance. But all of them will leave impressions on your heart.

There are a lot of assholes in the world, Savannah. Too many to count. Too many to imagine, it seems. They crop up out of nowhere at the drop of a hat. You'll wonder if perhaps these men graduated from a secret Asshole University where they took courses in "Making Women Uncomfortable By Simply Looking At Them" and "How To Be An Entitled Douche To Modest Retail Workers"* (*more on this another time).

But these several, very important boys...these are the ones who will give you hope for the future. I know that sounds cheesy, but I mean it. You will smile to yourself, hugging your pillow at night just at the knowledge that they exist in this shitty, messed up world.

This won't cure your loneliness, Savannah, and I'm afraid that perhaps nothing will, but the existence of these boys in your life will make you okay with being alone for the night. The hole in your chest will seem much less gaping, much less unbearable. You'll be able to chase away sad thoughts with memories of searching for your car on a rainy Halloween night, and having serious heart-to-heart conversations over snapchat at three in the morning, and being silly teenagers on a haunted night hike, because someone thought that was a good idea for a birthday surprise (and it totally was).

There are phenomenally good, kind men out there, Savannah. There are boys who will look at you with curious, compassionate eyes, instead of hungry, probing ones. There are boys who will look at your heart and at your desires, rather than at your breasts and your butt. There are boys who are more concerned with the kindness in you than in the curves of your body, and they are so, so important.

It's easy to forget when things grow dismal and the world seems to hate you and your heart, but I beg you to remember these boys, these men, these remarkable human beings.

You are valuable, Savannah, and there are some boys who can see that value in you when you cannot.

Love,
Yourself

A letter to my younger self: concerning a painful New Year

Dear little Savannah,

One day, maybe I will realize that there is a time for everything, and just as unforgiving winters surface after a plentiful harvest, so do trials emerge after a stint of small blessings.

I don't know what to tell you, little one. I want to tell you that a happy ending comes to the quiet, kind peasant girl who loves her family and sacrifices her time and money to help provide for them. I want to tell you that Cinderella meets her prince at his concert and he falls in love with her as she bobs to his music in the crowd. I want to tell you that the evil queen dies and goodness fills the earth, once and for all.

Nothing comes to those who wait patiently and the meek will only inherit the earth after they suffer incredible hardship first, waiting and waiting for the bad guy to be vanquished.

Wishing on coincidences in clocks and filling your heart with big dreams will only end up crushing you later. Oh please, God, remember this!

Oh, God, I can feel my ribs crack and splinter under the pressure these impossible dreams put on my too-large heart.

You will slave away your days in jobs where people feel entitled to trample you under their boots if you don't satisfy their every whim. You will exhaust yourself collecting pennies to save for that great big dream of yours, only to have that money ripped from you when another inevitable disaster strikes.

God, what use is this waste of life?

No one gives a shit what happens to you and your impossible dreams. They cast fleeting, pitiful glances your way when tragedy strikes, but no one steps in to help you.

God hears you, but He doesn't respond, yet.

He waits.

And waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Until you wonder if perhaps He's forgotten and moved on.

And that's how everyone is. Everyone forgets about you, about me, about our stupid dreams and the urging of our heart.

Maybe it's better that way.

I don't want to wake up tomorrow.

Savannah.