Dear Hell,

You eat at me when I sleep and although you are taming your hunger I lay there struggling to breathe. And sometimes I don't know why you want me or what I've done to you, but I'm helpless in the ongoing battle between our souls. You've conquered the pit you've carved out in my stomach and you reside there when the sun is high in the sky. I think the light burns into the darkness that you desire so you become a castaway until you're no longer afraid to come out and play. But it's not so much playing as it is a boy teasing a girl on the playground. It's not so much playing as it's insomnia or the thoughts that linger around my head at night. I know you all too well.

I surrendered my innocence to you as you demanded pieces of my happiness. We traded your nightmares for my day dreams, like I traded toys in elementary school, reluctant and coerced. But you see, I was faultless back then and now all I can see are my flaws that you lay out in front of me every night before I close my eyes. Now, I find my knees pressed to my chest and my lungs gasping for oxygen that never seems to travel to them.

You're crazy they all tell me. They spell it out in grammatically correct sentences with capitalized letters and periods. But what they don't understand is that I'm just a girl on the playground and the crazy is the clouds that shadow a perfectly bright day. You leaked your way gradually into my life and I sometimes wish you would have hit me like an oncoming train instead.

You have sucked the living life out of me as you feed yourself on my goals, dreams, and accomplishments. You have become apart of me, growing from my hip that identifies itself with me, as me. Some days you take pity on me and it feels like bricks have been lifted from my chest, but I remind myself that it's only a short release. You aren't that kind. You won't relinquish, and I have accepted that because I am fighting you from the bottom of my heart and sooner or later you'll be the boy who nobody wants to be friends with.

I am giving you the fight of your life so you better suit up.

See you soon

Jackie