"More than a stunning debut. It is the announcement of a bold new literary voice"
—Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I don’t know where you are right now. Probably you aren’t even in Heaven. I don’t know. You were my closest friend when we were children. And I miss you. I bet if you saw me now you wouldn’t recognize me. You wouldn’t realize that the girl with dead eyes and chapped lips and blue hands was the girl you used to whisper words of love to. It’s okay I wouldn’t have recognized me either.

If you saw the scars tainted on my thighs when I was 12, those were for you. Those marks were for you because I loved you so fucking much and you were just gone. You left and I’m still here. Maybe I’ll join you one day. Maybe not. But oh God, Micheal do I miss you.

I miss your laugh and the way that eyebrows would scrunch at me. And the way your eyes would light up upon seeing me.

I miss the way you held my hand and told me that it’ll all be alright the most.

I never met you.

I did know your younger sister.

She was one of the nicest people in our class. When I found out you died the way you did I felt horrible. All I could think of is the fact that I could of been you a few years before. But there I was. Socially awkward, no really accepted at school or home, and with so much self hate it could drive anyone else to where you where then and where I was those years ago…

I remember seeing your picture on that little funeral pamphlet they give out at those kinds of things. You were really pretty. You looked like you were gonna go places. Like one day you’d meet a man who loved you until the stars fell and you two would have many children, and you would have a while picket fenced house away from Chicago where the air is fresh and the scenery is green

Your sister is doing good. She misses you. But she’s around a ton a people who love and care for her so so much.

Something I sorta wish I had. Things are sorta good now I have a friend who makes everything better. ... Read more

I just want to say that we miss you. Somewhere, someone misses you. You are loved. You are remembered. You made a difference.

I cannot tell you how much you have been a blessing in my life. Thank you for everything you’ve provided me with: pleasure, reassurance, escape, love. I spend all my time in you, reading different stories and tales. I cannot describe the feeling of being able to experience a life of another human being. It’s incredible and magical together. Books, you are my everything.

See, I made friends in this place where you were born. I haven’t gotten the chance to introduce one to you. You left too soon as we moved here. I didn’t get the chance for you to know that I love to be a writer someday, that I even have a partner now in writing. I started chatting with her in my junior days in HS up until now, we’re connected. Dad, you should have met her. I’m sorry I didn’t take what you want me to get a degree with. I just don’t want it. I love you to my writings.

After I finished reading, “Love Letters To The Dead” I thought about which dead person I would love to write a love letter to. Most people would have guessed, and they’ll be right. I wanted to write a love letter to you, because you are one of my favorite artist of all time but sadly you died 10 years before I was even born.

I never had the chance to share Earth with you, but your legacy lived enough for me to meet you through your music. I met you when I first listened to “The Beatles” when I was 14 yrs old, after that my music life changed. I knew then that I would never love or admire no one better than your band. You weren’t the best singer of The Beatles, but the feeling you used to put in your voice and the presence you had made me like you the most. Your solo career was very succesful too. I keep an album of your best solo albums songs and I relate to many of them.Your music made me forget bad situations and change my whole mood when I am angry.

A lot of people hate you ... Read more

Just over a year has past since you left us, back inside that hotel room in Vancouver. I still remember that night. My family just got back from watching the fireworks at Boucharts. Mom, dad and I were watching tv when my sister came running up the stairs to share the news. It’s safe to say that I miss you. I never knew you personally nor did I ever meet you; but for some reason you have a special place in my heart. Or, in my family’s hearts. You grew up in the same city that I’m still growing in. In school last fall we had to write a report on someone we look up to, or, someone who made a difference in this world. I chose you. I wrote a biography from the start- when things were not easy for you, then, your best years, I wrote all the way until the end. The very end. What I and many others want to know is why? why did you have to go? Of course there’s that old saying “Everything happens for a reason” so, what was the reason? What reason did you have to do those drugs even when you were trying ... Read more

You were my first best friend. I remember your big reckless smile and the way your mother put your hair in pigtails tied with those soft yarn ribbons, a different colored set for each outfit. By the end of the day, they were always slipping out. You weren’t a ribbons girl, really.

On Spring evenings, you would knock on our door and call, ” Can Joy come out and play?” My mother smugly said you were always finished first becuase your mother served you sandwiches for dinner. My mother was far from a chef, but she believed in a hot supper. Shake-n-Bake chicken or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or maybe a Mama Celeste frozen pizza.

We would ride our Big Wheels around the neighborhood, the unapologetic sound of crunching gravel roared in our ears. You taught me to turn mine upside down and pedal the wheels with my hands to turn it into an ice cream truck. Now that makes no sense at all, but back then, it was perfect.

With the other kids in the neighborhood, Kevin and Pam and Bernadette and Chris and sometimes even the big boys like Brian and Shawn, we played Freeze Tag and TV ... Read more

I want to begin by saying I’m sorry about your arms. It must’ve been hard to assert yourself and be taken seriously with such comically short arms on such an imposing scaly figure. But Tyrannosaurus, I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m glad you died 65 million years ago because my mom is deathly afraid of lizards and probably never would have set foot outside her house if you’d been around. And if that had happened, I wouldn’t be here to write you this letter…. so thank you, indirectly I guess, for dying so that I could live. I still think it’s awesome that I drink the same water you drank, and breathe the same air that you breathed. It’s truly an honor. You’re one of the most badass creatures ever to have existed, and quite frankly Tyrannosaurus, I wish I could be more like you. I wish I could wake up in the mornings and know that the scariest thing I’d see all day was my own reflection. I wish there weren’t societal pressures like drugs and alcohol and other bad influences surrounding myself and my peers. I wish it wasn’t important to follow fashion and know about ever ... Read more

I still remember when you were lying catatonic in a hospital bed moments away from death, but I don’t dwell on seeing you under the scratchy sheets with the smell of iodine and beeping of the machines keeping you alive, because I know you don’t want to be thought of that way. Instead, I chose to focus on the moments that meant something, the moments that mattered. I choose to think of the times we sat in our big backyard and you’d watch the browning leaves of our oak tree slowly find their way to the grass below, as I scaled its branches. Or hot summer days with instant pink lemonade mix slowly dissolving into the icy pitches of water as condensation gathered on its surface. I know that I can never forget the slow and steady drip of the IV, but that’s not who you were and that’s not how I chose to remember you.