16 letters to Everyone Ive been

16 Letters to Everyone I've Been

Sixteen letters.

Eight are addressed to the versions of me I had to become.

The girl who didn't know she was hurting.
The version of me who stayed too long.
The girl who mistook being needed for being loved.
The person I became when nobody was watching.
The girl who outgrew her own dreams.
The version of me I keep apologising for.
The girl who finally chose herself.
And whoever I become after this.

Then, eight more.

To the people who taught me how to live.
How to love.
To the ones I never got closure from.
The ones I hurt.
The ones who hurt me.
The version of us that doesn't exist anymore.
The people who only know one version of me.
And the one who stayed.

Maybe we are not made entirely of our own pieces.

Maybe we are also made of the people who loved us, left us, changed us, misunderstood us, broke us, saved us, and stayed long enough to become part of our story.

This is a collection about becoming.

About the people we carry.

About the versions of ourselves we leave behind.

And about learning that sometimes, the person we've been looking for at the end of every story...

was ourselves.