To Sarah Brown. (I always thought you had the softest brown hair.)

I never understood the life you were living. I was just a kid and you were just a troubled rebel who always smelled wrong. I wasn't allowed in your room because you were angry and would probably swear at me. But now I've realized

 you      lost      it       all.

All the marbles lined up and in one straight shot God said you were going to lose. 

He took the love and the understanding and the communication straight out of your home and left you with half of a half of a mother. She did you no wrong but she never could quite do you right and you still had to live to see tomorrow. I thought you chose to be the all-black stand away but you were begging to be the all-surrounded cured.

I thought the fights were crude and pointless and you were defiance in action against a cause, but you were struggling along the train tracks with a rope and a gun and you were plotting the best way to drown. 

You had it leap from your heart to the cold basement that you knew life wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. Why did your father have to go when your mother was barely high functioning? Why did the Destiny's Child CD and the American Girl Dolls turn from a childhood to a bitter pile in the corner of a pink room that is far too ready for a happy girl to come home with a happy smile to happy parents with happy problems.

 Nothing about the current you were caught in seemed happy, and I thought you chose that. I'm sorry I never held your hand or told you how much it meant that you let me use your endless CD's. I'm sorry I sat on the concrete floor and played with your ferrets alone and ran quickly upstairs when you came out of your room.

I was just a kid. I didn't know.