I want to go back in time and find myself at fifteen. There's one minute in particular where I was balanced on the edge of recovery and replace and sitting with a blade in between fingers and trying to decide if I had any reason to really give it up and I remember thinking "if only someone would hold me, I could be saved." It did not occur to me to warp my arms around my own body.
I want to take that little broken girl and fold her against my chest, I want to stroke the back of her head and let her cry until her insides are raw and eyes run dry. I want to kiss her hair and say "look at me" and make her take in the girl she'll be at twenty and I want to say "we are never perfect but we stop thinking perfection is who we are supposed to be."
I want to show her my writing and read hers with kind heart because I know that no matter where she turned, someone was always putting her notebooks down before they'd finished the stories. I wan to give her the letters people have written me, I want to hold her hand and say "you will learn to love, sweetie, but right now, just be."
And if you are fifteen and wishing you could stop existing here's a note from yourself at twenty; it's all going to work out, don't worry.
