Even though this is listed as number 12, this is the real first missive. I wrote a letter to a good friend after finding out a dangerous secret when we were 15 or 16. Once I had crumbled the loose-leaf I had been carefully wording my concerns on, and resigned myself to silence, I broke out a five star spiral notebook and scribbled this out a handful of pages in. It’s 12 only in that that was how many pages I buried it into the notebook that would soon become the home of all 215 misplaced missives. 

What I really want to say to you,
I know I can never say.
It would break you to know,
And it would break me to say.

So instead I’ll write it.
And I’ll mean every line:
“I’m so disappointed in you,
You really screwed up this time.
Things will never be the same
And they will never be fine”.

I wish I didn’t know
I wish it hadn’t happened
But wishes aren’t real
However I might wish they really were.
‘Cause even if I didn’t know,
It wouldn’t change what occurred.

I couldn’t take it if you lied to me,
But the truth feels even worse
The words I won’t say might break you
But the words you spoke became a curse.
Because things will never be the same
And they will never be fine again.

What I really want to say to you
I know I won’t ever say.
It would break you to know
Like it broke me to feel this way.

Jessie Gutierrez