Dear ______ ,

Life without you would of been the worst experience ever. You taught me more things than I could of ever imagined. They were never lessons you could learn out of a textbook though. It was pure street smarts. For that I say thank you. But that isn’t you anymore. Is it?

One day you woke up and changed your life forever. It was something we all watched happen and we all sat there and did exactly that. We watched. There was nothing to do. You made your decision, then we made ours. Between the “you should stop smoking” and the “seeing someone could help” there was no bringing you back. You were too far gone.

You smoked your first blunt and that is the absolute day you died. You began to smoke on a regular basis and then it was just a bad habit. Coming to school high was normal. Hiding the bags you carried your drugs in was too. It was always an interesting conversation when you asked me “are my eyes red?” or “do I smell like weed”. The answer was always yes and I always had your antidote. From eyedrops to perfume there was not much I could do to save you. You were just too far gone.

Eventually you graduated. It was no longer organic, it was all synthetic. This is when we buried you. Nothing was enough for you. There was no coming back from the grave you dug for yourself.

The drugs just became worse and worse. There was powder in your phone and you shook it out laughing. It was just a joke to you. You told use all about how to buy drugs. Where you could get them. How much they were. This was all information I absorbed. It was all information that was something you loved.

Passion is a very strong emotion. You had a future planned out involving your love. So I thought maybe you weren’t dead. But when it was time to identify you, you were dead.

There is a part of me that feels as if I let you down somewhere during our time growing up. I should of been there for you. I should of invited you to do other activities. I should of just sent you a message or called you to say that I missed seeing your face. I knew you had the hardest life out of all of us, so I knew drugs would be inevitable but I did not think that I would lose you to them.

I feel obligated to say that you did it all for you. You did it so YOU felt good. But you didn’t realize. There was so many people around you that watch you burn your life away with each time you lit up that cigarette.

We all lose someone to drugs. Whether we get them back is not up to us. I think it was just the fact that I watched someone who we all grew up with for years get into something that influenced them so much. It defined every movement they made throughout the day. But was even worse, it defined them.