my dearest brother -

hopefully i can get through this without bawling. i'm in the library.

i was thinking about you last night, like i often do, and missing you so much i could hardly breathe. i played depressing music on the stereo, stuff i know that you used to listen to. i looked through your letters, the ones you wrote me when i was a freshman in college and going through all the usual ups and downs. i say that i looked through them cause i didn't actually read them. it's been six years, and i still can't sit down and read them from start to finish because it's just too damn hard. they are full of so much insight and understanding and connection. you were the only person in the whole goddamn world who understood me, at least a little bit.

oh, how i worshipped the ground you walked on. and you knew it too, but you never belittled me, or made me feel like i was just a little kid tagging along. you and i were a united force against our other brother, even though he was much closer to you in age then i was. i tried so hard to be as cool as you. i listened to the same type of music as you. i tried to write poetry and create art like you. i even tried to dress like you. you were the most perfect person, beautiful, original, unique. and you listened to me. you cared what i had to say.

i think about the day i found out that you died. i think about it all the time. i dropped the phone and collapsed in my room, this awful, wailing, baying sound emanating from my body. in a lot of ways i blame you for how my life has gone since that day. i know it isn't fair for me to do that, but i can't help it. i think that maybe if you were still here to listen, to understand i wouldn't have gotten so lost. how did i get so lost?? sometimes i wonder if you can see me, if you can feel my pain, so deep and dark, twisting in my body and gripping my heart. can you? can you see what you've done?

can't you see that i'm lost without you in my life? i've tried, i've tried so hard, but here it is six years later and fuck if i've really messed shit up. i'm messed up, i feel almost irreversibly. and the crazy thing is i know that you wanted and expected such great things from me. and i have nothing to show for it.

how can i be more like you were? how can i be artistic and balanced and have a warm heart?

how could you fucking leave me? why do i have to stay here on this fucking earth and see people that remind me of you and art that reminds me of yours and hear music that reminds me of you? you were the ONE PERSON who GOT me at ALL and you fucking left.

that pisses me off. i'm bawling now. that pisses me off even more.

i'm sorry - i feel like whenever we talk i'm always yelling at you and bitching at you. i don't mean to. i just miss you. so much. will it ever go away? i don't want to forget you, but i don't want to ache for you like this. it's getting too hard.

i love you. miss you forever.

starving + bleeding