You Jumped to the Ground, So High Death First

They say hindsight is 20 /20, with my glasses off it still hurts so clearly after 11 years.

We were not sisters or best friends, I was not the one that sucked all the happiness from your life. But I helped, even if it was just a few drops.

You were always yourself, openly. Maybe that's why everyone hated you. Everyone else wore masks, no one was good to their friends or lovers. You needed help in a place where no one knew how to be a friend. I am sorry for my ignorance and everyone else's. I am sorry it took you leaving and me leaving, and years of being sad and lost for me to see it.

I do not remember you doing a single mean thing to me and I do not remember doing one nice thing for you. When I cut my hair short you were the first one to see me. You told me I was pretty, in a time when I felt permanently ugly. I know I laughed at you for things that would have made me cry for myself. And it makes me cringe to think I ever thought "she was asking for it." I hate that you had to know the 15-year old me. I hate that when liking a boy made you sad and desperate and I knew exactly how you felt, I turned you away. It was out of loyalty to someone who never respected my loyalty.

You made me reflect on my unhappiness in a way I never had before, made it clear it came from me. When you jumped you laid all of our ugliness bare, for a few weeks at least. But all these years later I am still thinking of you, I am still apologizing. Maybe that's why I can never let sad people go. I have to save them all.

You helped me realize the person I was and helped me change it. You helped me see the world and people around me, what I was surrounding myself with. At this point I know I can choose my friends, my life, my happiness. I just wish I could have helped you know too.

I do not need to visit your grave because I do not need that block of cement to remind me. I think about you not only on your birthday and deathday, but throughout the year, through the years. I hope everyone else does too, I hope you seep into their skin and invade their brain until some of that ugly is pushed out.

I wish the person I am today could have been the friend you needed then. You would have given Hedda Gabler will to live, you went with vine leaves in your hair.