The First Few

a note to the girl who saved my life, and the man who ruined it. when i look back at my childhood, i imagine it in third person. i watch little-me totter through life, naive and silly, as if i watching a movie. as if she was no one more than a character that makes stupid decisions, a character no one spent more than a second thinking of. she wasn' t stupid, really, when i think about it. she was a child. a kid that deserved more opportunities than those she was presented with. i am too harsh on the decisions made by a four year old, a ten year old, a thirteen year old. when i think about it, i am far kinder to everyone but myself, even when i think back on before i had the ability to function on my own. i need to learn to be kinder to her. to apologize for the injustice i served her, to make up for the neglect i put towards myself. she is not a different person than i. that same little girl still lives within me, and she needs to know that it wasn' t her fault. i write to not only those who influenced my lives, whose words tattoo me and blend together shamelessly, but to myself as well. to the version of me that held onto hope that someday i could be my own person. that someday, i would put down my pencil, and everything would make sense, because i would belong to myself, and myself only.