v. letters i should never write: blood brother

(proof that devastation can cause two very different outcomes)

i wish i didn’t have to write to you.
i wish i didn’t have to write about you.
but mostly—
i wish you just…liked me.
not loved.
not protected.
not stood up for.
just... liked.

i get it.
i was annoying.
i existed too loudly.
i embarrassed you.
i wanted to be around you, around your friends.
and maybe you thought it was just little sister shit.
but for me?
it was survival.
it was the only way i knew how to say don’t leave me here alone.
it was a tether.
a flare.
a prayer.

and it’s not like i didn’t notice.
that one time—
when i needed you the most—
you turned your back on me.
i was still so young.
but i clocked it.
the disgust.
the recoil.
the way you pulled away like the shame was contagious.

and it cut so deep because i never knew why.
i still don’t.

i don’t know what i ever got that you didn’t.
i don’t know what made me so contemptible.
i don’t know why your power always came with distance.
i don’t know why you pretend you weren’t the chosen one.

you were.
even if the crown was bloody.
even if it came with fists and rage and rooms you had to survive.
you were seen.
you were coached.
you were somebody’s pride.

and me?
i stayed local.
shared lockers and hand-me-downs.
rode the bus past the house you disappeared from.
you were sent somewhere with towers and ivy.
somewhere far from where we came from.
somewhere they paid for you to be saved.

and now?
you mock any softness shown to me.
call it irresponsible.
call it unearned.
like i didn’t grow up
digging through the wreckage you walked away from.
like i wasn’t surviving
without the luxury of distance.

and i pitied you for that, sometimes.
because the violence made you cruel.
but it didn’t make you invisible.

i was the ghost in the house.
the background noise.
the extra mouth.
the girl who kept showing up—
even though no one was home.

and still—
i never hated you for it.
but from your pedestal,
you still spit on me.

you saw me after he left.
and all you could say was—
why did you pick him?
why did you have a baby?
why would he stay?

you didn’t ask me about the pictures;
you didn’t ask me what happened—
didn’t ask for the hospital report
when he punched me so many times,
i thought she was dead inside of me;
the police report;
the bruises.
cuts.
blood.

and i didn’t ask.
not then.
not ever.
i never asked you for anything.
not help.
not mercy.
not kindness.
and the times i almost did?
you locked the door before i reached the handle.

and still—
i drove to visit.
sent the gifts.
sent the cards.
still remembered your birthdays.
still tried to be a part of your family.
still wanted to be the girl you didn’t mock behind the scenes.

you don’t dislike me.
you just don’t see me.
and if you did—
you’d probably laugh.
probably say i’m being dramatic.
probably roll your eyes
and go back to your neat little life
where i’m a chaotic warning you don’t believe in.

and still—after all this—
i wish you liked me.
not because it would fix anything.
not because i think i deserve it.
but because it would mean i wasn’t crazy for trying.

because if you liked me—
even a little—
then maybe i wasn’t just screaming into an empty house.
maybe i wasn’t as forgettable as you made me feel.
maybe the girl i was didn’t die in that silence—
she just got tired of waiting for anyone to look back.

and maybe that’s what hurts most.
not the rejection.
not the judgment.
not even the disgust.

but the knowing—
deep in my marrow—
that i wasn’t a reflection of who you didn’t want to become—
i was the evidence of what you left behind to save yourself.

iv. letters i should never write: to the woman sleeping with his cadaver

i don’t know you exist.
not for certain.
but i know you exist.

hi.
i’m the past.
the one he couldn’t kill.

let me tell you your future.

he probably said i was insane.
manipulative.
violent.
that he tried.
that i ruined him.

and you—
you probably wanted to believe him.
because it made you feel chosen.
special.
needed.

(i get it)

but i know you’ve seen the cracks.
the things you know not to ask.
the phone face down.
the gaps in the story—
where you can feel it’s a lie.

and honestly?

he’ll grow quieter.
not calm—
just calculating.

you’ll ask simple questions.
he’ll deflect like you struck him.

you’ll rationalize.
he wouldn't.
he couldn’t.
he would.
he did.

you’ll pay the bill.
you’ll fix the mess.
you’ll lie for him.
just like us.

you think i’m bitter,
angry,
unwell.
but no—
i’m free.

i cut the rope.
he wanted us to drown quietly together.

he doesn’t love you.
he loves an ego hit.
he loves your assets.
(did he move in?)

your willingness to believe you’re different.

and i’m sorry.
but—
you’re not.
you’re just next.

because he’s not just damaged.
he’s pathological.

and he’s not haunted.
he’s infected.

(and that makes him dangerous)

he studies people like us so he can become who we need—
to secure the resources he needs to survive.

i hope he hasn’t taken your money yet.
your confidence.
your light.
but if he hasn’t,
he will.

so take this as my warning:
it will hurt.
because when he cracks—
he crushes.
it’s brutal.
irrationally cruel.

and that is the sickness.

he sleeps beside you,
but he’ll never live in that body.

and girl—
he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to unsee his own ghosts.

and you—
you are just his next hiding place.
you are the cover story.
the camo.
the alibi.

so if you see this,
(you probably will)

baby, run.

iii. letters i should never write: steven the rapist.

i could start this by calling you a disgusting, pathetic little piece of shit.
but even that says too much yet means too little.

your mom should have miscarried you.
you are a mistake to the world.
you are a clerical error of the universe.
not even a real person.
just walking, breathing fecal matter stuffed into unironic nerd glasses.
a creepy short-ass loser that has friends that are girls;
because it’s too hard to get someone to fuck you that wants to.

you’re the reason women are confused about what rape is.
because honestly you look like a pussy.
that’s the only reason i even let my guard down.
but you’re the reason i learned that being nice to men—
makes them think you want to fuck them.
makes them think they deserve to fuck you.

you hovering little hobbit bitch.
orbiting.
lurking.
watching me date literally…anyone else.
but that didn’t matter to you.

you swear we made out once.
good for you.
hold onto that.
you’re going to need something to fantasize about when you rot in whatever basement you still live in.

what i remember is christmas night.

i remember being blackout drunk.
i remember asking my brother to drive me home.
and i remember you —
jumping in like the little peasant-bitch you are
like you were owed something for creeping in the background all those years.

you said,

"nah, i got you—let me"

yeah.
you "got me."

you got me passed out.
you got me half-conscious and unable to say no.
you got me bleeding out and terrified the next morning.

you got me a tampon jammed so far inside me it felt like it was trying to butcher me from the inside out.

congratulations, you fucking loser.
imagine having to move like that to get someone to fuck you?

i told my brother when i woke up.
the first person i saw.
i told him with that tampon still lost inside me.
and he looked me in the face and said,

"are you telling me you got date raped?"
(disgusted)
and walked away.

he’s the reason i didn’t go to the hospital that day.
i was too scared.
because nobody fucking cares.

ten years later i walked into the police station anyway.

they made me find your number.
they made me call you.
they made me speak to you.

and you didn't even deny it.
you fucking agreed.
you fucking admitted it.

you said:

"yeah... it didn’t feel right."
"yeah... i knew how drunk you were."

sober enough to drive an extra hour out of your way.
sober enough to seize an opportunity you knew i would never have complied with sober.
(like the weird little pathetic gremlin you are)
sober enough to rape me and make it home in a—
poof.

but it still wasn’t enough for them.
because in the eyes of the law,
unless you die on the floor,
in front of their eyes
it doesn’t count.

but hey steven,
hear me out for a second—
you think this is over?

new jersey doesn’t have a statute of limitations, you dumb troll.
and now i know the law better than the pigs who let you off the first time.

this isn’t a threat.
it’s just a fact.

you’re not even a villain in my story.
you’re a thought that makes me want to peel my own skin off.
a fucking weird gross stain.
a fuckup i haven’t gotten around to correcting yet.

you’re insidious because you hide behind niceness.
but someday people will know exactly what you did to me.

and that title will stay with you forever.

you’re just a body walking around waiting for the truth to catch up.

and it will.
(hope you sleep okay)

ii. letters i should never write — to the woman who had my last name first:

sometimes i think about you.
not because he made you a threat.
not because of jealousy.
but because i questioned what happened.

i saw the man that came to me.
the rot.
the confusion.
the mask that slipped only when no one else was looking.
(the cruelty.)

and i thought—
maybe only i could see it.
maybe that meant i could fix it.
maybe it would be different.

but i should’ve known.
i should’ve read between the lines of your silence.
the absence of details.
the things that didn’t quite add up.
the things that were too neatly erased.

i heard the whispers.
the ones people say in low voices
so they don’t have to say them all the way.

but now i understand:
he didn’t love either of us.
(i think it was the one in between / irrelevant.)
but truthfully—
he never loved himself.

i got your letters.
from the church.
the ones asking to dissolve what god had supposedly bound.
i read them.
even the accusations.
some were harsh.
(maybe unnecessary.)
but some haunted me.
because i know you weren’t lying.

and even in the slander—
i believed you.
every word.

i still would’ve protected him.
not because i didn’t believe you.
but because i knew what he was,
and still wanted him to be better.

i’m not religious.
but i am here to tell you:
i heard you.
i see you.

and some things that are supposed to be holy break.

but i’m proud of you.
it wasn’t okay.

and i’m sorry your dream fell apart.
i’m sorry for what was promised
and never delivered.

because the truth is—
he never had a dream.
just pain,
and delusion,
and a black hole of secrets.

i don’t know if we ever really knew him.
but we both tried to.
and we both lost.

i’m sorry what you had with him died.
what i had did too.
and the man we knew?
he lives on like a ghost.

but i wanted you to know—
i believe you.
and i know what it cost you to survive him.

i. letters i should never write— to my father (but really, to the boy you were):

i’m not writing to the man.
that man is dead to me.
this is for the boy.
the child still trapped inside the monster you became.

i forgive you.
not because you deserve it,
but because i know what happened.

i’m sorry life was cruel to you before you had words for it.
i’m sorry no one kept you safe.
i’m sorry the lights went out and no one came.
i’m sorry you wandered the streets as a kid,
looking for a floor that wouldn’t kick you.
i’m sorry you were hungry.
cold.
forgotten.
i’m sorry you weren’t held more.
that your mother left.
that you became hard when what you needed was softness.

i’m sorry for the horrors you definitely saw
and the dreams that died before you even learned to dream.

but here’s the part i’ll never say out loud:
it’s true.
i leave you.
and yes—forever.

not because i stopped loving you.
but because you wouldn’t stop bleeding on me
from wounds you refused to heal.
you stabbed me with the same blade that made you.
and one day, i finally pulled it out
and said:
no more.

you didn’t get out.
i tried to drag you out.
but you wouldn’t come.

so i did what you couldn’t.
i got out.
i took the ghosts and turned them into light.

your granddaughter is safe.
she is warm.
she is fed.
she will never know what we survived.

and that’s the part i want you to know,
somewhere, in whatever broken cathedral your soul still haunts:
you didn’t get to finish the story.
but the ending is beautiful anyway.

we made it.
you didn’t.
but because of that—
we did.