_________

I was really sad for a long time.

I'm still sad- but I have you two again. I am so lucky mama had more kids after me. You both make me laugh like I haven't in years. You make me feel loved even after mama left us. I was so sad because no one loved me. I was all alone. I had no one to talk to or make me laugh.

You guys are asking me to come back home to you two. I think I will. I think I will just pack up my life in a small box and leave everything behind. I know this would make our mom happy- us being together forever, but I am doing this for me. I am doing this because I want to be around the people who love me and miss me. 

Ah my heart is beating so fast. I am scared of what I am about to type. I will try my hardest to leave the old me here. The one who has seen death and blood with her eyes. I want to shed her away like an old skin and start a new one. You, him, me, the dog, and the baby. There are others who miss me and love me too but you are the only ones I care about. 

The youngest I cannot reach- the youngest I am afraid will not remember me. 

_________

My roommate has a parade of men coming in and out of her bedroom late at night. I can hear them through the door and the walls. I don't really think much about it. I just think about her little girl who is almost two sleeping in the crib right there in the room with them.

I think about how unhappy she is- the mother not the daughter. I think about how all these men who come for 'movies' or 'hanging out' forget to bring the DVD's or just have alcohol with them.

And how she always describes them as' been friends forever'. But they are always gone by late morning as she ushers them away so her daughter will not meet them face to face. How many friends does she have exactly? Where does she find these men who do not want love? Who never come back?

I guess I should count myself fortunate- the people who held me at night were there in the day. They loved me. I was special.

I hope to leave this place soon. I hope more than anything I never have to see her or her daughter again.