Hi.

I don't know if you're real. I don't know if you're out there. I don't know if I should be directing this letter at myself. I don't know if these words could ever be about anyone else. There's a lot of things I don't know. But I am starting to learn what I want.

I don't think I've met you yet. Then again, I've been wrong before. But whoever you are, I want things from you.
I want you to meet me every day in an honest state.
I want you when you're okay. I want you when you're brave. I want you when you're a mess. I want you when you're not feeling yourself. I want you when you feel the way your guardians made you feel. I want you when you hesitate to believe that you are real. I want you when you can easily stomach every meal. I want you when you're nauseous from relentlessly trying to heal. I want you when you're strong. I want you when you're weak. I want you when you speak out loud and when your whispers turn meek.

This is what I mean when I demand consistency.

These words almost burst from beneath my tired lid.
My pot is burnt, blackened, brass. But I'm learning that nothing is so dirty as to never again be clean.
It's hard work though.

I've been mean. I've demeaned. I've let pain go unseen.
I am not innocent in the past that causes me such suffering.
But I think it's what we make of it that matters more than what we have seen.
And either way, I get a say in what the words I carry mean.