Submission 234
Dear Karl,
It has been 5 years and this month you would have been 25. After what you put me through prior to your passing, I doubt we would be friends now. You may have achieved your dream of being in medical school to become a GP, one who would listen without judgement, understand and do everything he could to help.
I don't know if I miss you but I do wish you were still alive. I miss your humour. I miss seeing you sit in the garden, smoking and feeding the sparrows. I miss how you were always so kind, so gentle, so ready to help people.
I live my life for you now. I am out of the closet, and proud. I try and help people however I can, support their dreams. No one in my life now knew you, but hopefully they know your spirit and energy through me.
Submission 233
To my darling Paul,
I miss you in ways even words cannot understand.
Always and forever
Your Dawn
xxx<3xxx
Submission 232
Dad,
This is the first new years without you, I should be stood on your balcony watching the fireworks. Instead I'm at home alone with the cats.
I know why you did it, I can't find it in myself to blame you, but even so I wish you were here still. You've already missed so much, I met Jays boyfriend, he's amazing you'd love him. They're so good for each other, you'd be so proud! I've gotten firsts in every single uni assignment this semester, I've been discussing a PhD with my favorite lecturer and he wants to take me on, you'd be so proud.
Remember one of the last times we spoke, you said you'd never have grandkids? I tried to reassure you that I wanted kids someday and I didn't realise that what you actually meant was that you wouldn't live long enough to meet them.
Submission 231
To My Best Friend,
We are nearing a year without you. Somehow it feels like it happened yesterday and 10 years ago all at once. It’s weird to thinks it’s closer to the 1 year mark than when it happened. Yet, I am still very much stuck in March. There is not a day that passes where I don’t wake up and think of you, where I go about my day and think of you, or where I lay down to go to sleep and think of you.
Submission 230
Martina
Martina, it’s coming up to a year now since you did what you did. I want you to know that I don’t resent you for it and never have. More so myself if anything. While I now know why you did it, that doesn’t mean I understand it any more. The guilt has eased but is still lingering and I know that if you were here you’d tell me to stop being an idiot and stop thinking like that but it’s just one of those things I guess. I think this is something that I’m going to just have to learn to live with for now. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t think of you, what if anything I could’ve done or said differently or how different and better everything would be if you were here right now.
Submission 229
Amber’s Room,
Your diary, half written but filled with completed train journeys spent travelling to friends and artists; where adding a tattoo you had designed, totally imaginative and one of a kind, was as important to you as the holy grail. The hedgehog you revived, reared and rescued; mum has taken on rearing duties now, she takes them very seriously. Your jewellery making desk with pots of silver, partly made rings and dusty gems, you have a note on your shelf ‘look for ring everywhere!!, which was located years ago but the reminder still remains, in case it happens again… Your railing of leather jackets, enough to clothe the cast of The Lost Boys with pairs of Doc Martens to match. Your dried plants and herbs hanging on the walls and stuffed in jars for making tonics for friends and family, soothing their sleep and calming their days.
Submission 228
The best big sister,
I have written to you every year since , all the things I would usually tell you , the things I would only go to you for . I miss your smile and your voice and how easy it was for you to light up a room. I miss the times I needed you and you were there.
Submission 227
Dear Mum, Dear Bro,
I am angry you left without explaining honestly how you felt and what you were considering and let us help you. I'm angry you didn't fully seek mental health support, when we could have paid.
Submission 226
Dear Uncle Steve
“Why you”
My heart is broken, cracked completely in two
Since hearing the devastating news about you
Ripped from my world how wrong can that be
Your exit from life in the arms of a tree
Submission 225
To my brother
Hi Matt, summer is finally over again and I can start to breathe again. I don’t think I can ever enjoy a summer again no matter how much I convince myself. I think everyone thinks I’m crazy as all I look forward to is Christmas! I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me the most.
Submission 224
To my Big Bro,
It's almost been 100 days since you left us. Thinking about how you must have been feeling tears me apart and keeps me awake, scared of the nightmares that come. I feel like I can't keep the people I love, safe any more.
Submission 223
To my Dad
I wish you could have stayed longer to meet your beautiful granddaughter and watch me step into motherhood. I see glimpses of you in Evie, and I made sure to carry on our surname proudly in her name.
Submission 222
Mum
I wish you'd have stayed
I wish you'd have stayed
Mum, I wish you'd have stayed.
The daylight wouldn't feel so harsh if only you'd stayed.
The nighttime is now memories and arguments replayed.
And it'll never be the same without you, Mum, if only you'd stayed.
Submission 221
Dear L,
It will have been 6 years since you left in December. That’s crazy, isn’t it? 6 years is a really long time, or at least to me it is.
I don’t really speak about you to other people. But I wish I could. I miss you so, so much and a day doesn’t go by where I don’t think of you or say a prayer for you. We only knew each other for a couple of years but I loved every second of our friendship. And if given the chance I would speak about all of the bits of you that I miss. So that’s what I’m going to do now. Don’t cringe too hard!! Haha.
I miss your smile the most. It’s clichéd, I know, but I’m being honest. You grinned like a Cheshire Cat and it was delightfully infectious. I miss your long brown hair, and the smell of the rubbish body sprays you used to get from Superdrug.
Submission 220
Dad,
I’ve been questioning myself on what this letter means. Unlike most of the letters I’ve read so far I didn’t really get the chance to know you. Maybe that’s a blessing, although it never truly felt like that was the case.
Submission 219
To my Florist,
To my Florist,
How lucky I am to miss you so desperately.
In the years after you died, we’ve all spent many hours trying to understand what happened, what could have happened, what we could have changed, questions that rearrange your world. I think that’s partly because we’re all still so young, with a desperate need laced with naïvety to rationalise the irrational and work out what our favourite colour is by the end of each day, only to wake up and change our minds. But I think that’s the nature of how you died, it’s not linear or something that can be prepared for. I’ve since stopped trying to neatly piece together answers, something’s are simply not that simple. That’s why we have grey, techno and question marks.
Submission 218
Hi Boy,
I miss you. I’m so angry with you. But I miss you. I think my anger bubbles up because it’s easier to feel than how much I love you.
God, I would have died to take away those feelings that let you reach where you did that night.
Submission 217
To their daddy,
When I think about all of the different life scenarios we discussed on first dates, this was not one of them.
When I think about how you described your young life, your life progression, from Luton to law, when you told me your goals. This was not one of them.
When we found out I was pregnant and we talked about all the things we would do as parents. This was not one of them.
When we started making memories, before life became a challenge. We didn’t want this one.
When we separated and argued for months, trying to parent anyway we could. When we were trying to work out what option was best for our boys. This was not one of them.
Submission 216
Dear Daisy,
Life feels strange the older I get and you are still 16 years young. I often find myself thinking about the things you’re missing out on and wonder what person you’d have blossomed into.
Submission 215
To my baby brother,
My other half is a term associated with love
I’m using it to describe you, my brother up above
My brain etched with memories of laughter and joy
Only shared with you my brother, my special boy
There’s a poem called the dash, about time on this earth
About the use of our time from the day of our birth
Your time on this earth so short and sweet