where should i even start.
you deserved so much better. so so so much better.
i feel like i've written you a thousand letters and songs and it still hasn't cured me of my guilt
nothing i do will absolve the pain of losing you the way i did and the guilt. so so so much guilt.
this is quite possibly the only thing i feel guilty about. of all of the things i've done, the people i've hurt the pain i've caused, the chaos i've brought. none of that matters and this is where my guilt begins.
i don't think you had any idea how much i loved you. and you never will and thats okay because grieving is for the living. its shit we do to make us feel better but all these years later and you're still alive in my head. you're dead. your body is rotting underground in a box. you're dead. you're dead. sometimes i feel bad because i only got to love you for so long. you used to call me at night and i think you were reaching out for help and i never noticed. i try not to blame myself for being a teenager at the time and not understanding. but you were always so understanding of me. when i'd call you and complain about things andrew was doing to piss me off, and talk about guys i was fucking, you were always so fucking kind. you were the only person at the time i had told about what i was going through. i ignored you telling me you were just floating through life. i was jealous of your new gf because she loved you the way i never could. even though i didn't want to be with you like that, it still bothered me. i felt like had i never rejected you as many times as i did, that you'd still be here. you never would've met her, none of this would've ever happened. would you still have died on your back covered in your own vomit? possibly. there's no point in wondering. maybe it was only a matter of time before that happened. you know that happened to me but i'm still here. i wish you were still here. but i'm not sure how that relationship would be. i always wondered if you were still mad at me. if you're wondering, i'm still mad at myself. i was such a mess and you loved me any way. you loved my mess. i fucked all your friends and told you about it. i did all your coke and smoked your weed. but even then, i loved more than just the sex and drugs. unlike our other friends, who pinned me to the ground, shoved their hands down my throat and finger fucked me til i was bleeding, arms covered in struggle bruises, unlike those friends, i loved you. they were my self harm and you were my happiness.
i still wish you had come over that day and met my mom, she loved you too. i was watching you play halo in the cabana. she was gonna make nachos for us but it got too late in the day. i don't have my gold toyota highlander anymore, the most painful part of parting with that car was thinking about all the times i picked you up in it late at night. when we went to go get tacos, or smoke on the hill or go walk around at the park or go to hunters or brandons. you were one of two people i ever had sex with in that car. it was hard to part with because thats how i remembered you. in my passenger seat high as fuck covered in taco wrappers laughing about some dumb shit. i still remember you asking me on a proper date. you had asked me to go to dinner and a movie with you and i fucking REJECTED YOU. i fucking rejected you. i don't remember how, i don't remember what i said. we remained friends after that but god i still loved you. i always wanted you in my life. i wanted you at my first show, which was so painful. i wanted you at my music video shoot, i cried that day. when i came downstairs at wrap there was a girl playing the piano and singing riptide by vance joy. as fucking retarded as that song is (total retail store song now btw) it makes me break the fuck down wherever i am every time i hear it. that video of us singing that song together is all i have left. i have some not so flattering snapchat memory videos of you however. i remember you had such a big crush on chloe grace moretz and you kept making me watch her movies with you. we watched happy feet with kelso and hunter one time too and i can't watch that movie anymore. alice in wonderland hurts too. btw kelso and i are no longer friends. she decided to choose her crackhead bf over her friends and family, and keeps overdosing on fent. i wonder if she'll die like you did eventually. i still cry about her, i miss her so bad but she will never be the same. i'm not really friends with any of our friends anymore. we don't really talk. i cried to ebug about you and i cried to him about how they hurt me. he's the only one that showed remorse. i was such a sick fucking individual. suurrounded by other sick individuals. i remember the first time i ever did molly was with you, when brandon racked me a line and told me it was coke. we fucked all night in his sisters room and wandered around his house, i have some videos of that night still. the way i remember you is so happy. you were always so happy. you never got to hear my first song, or go to my first show but i think you would be happy for me. i don't like picturing you dead but sometimes i have to for my own sanity. i have to picture the scene in my head to comprehend that you're gone. you know that when you first died, i wandered around to every cemetery in newport to find your grave. i finally came across the right one, it was raining and dark and they gave me a flashlight and a map and told me where to find you. you were nothing but freshly turned dirt and a little flag in the ground. i continued to visit regularly but i was always so scared that one of your family members would show up. it felt wrong because you had no grave marker or headstone. i only knew because i had gone a week after you died. sometimes i cry, sometimes i play my new songs for you, sometimes i dump out weed or ketamine for you. i don't know where you are and its so confusing and frustrrating to me. i wonder if your dog is still alive. i wonder if he was confused that you were gone. i've read that animals need to see their dead to process that theyre gone and i feel the same way. i dont know whaat kind of service you had, i regret most of our conversations being on snapchat because i'd kill to read them again. i was invited to a paddle out for you and michelle but i never cared about her. i didn't go, i was invited the morning of and it was too late. your friends threw you a little concert but again, it was for the both of you. i know you loved her i'm sure you did but she was never my friend. i never cared about her. my friend died and it was about her. it was about both of you. it could never just be about you. all the news articles were about both of you. what about my friend? what about the person i loved? what about my friend? MY friend. MY fucking friend, not my friend and this girl. i was too angry with her, i should've never been because it was never her fault but i had to blame someone. and god the articles were so bad. talking about how you died in each others arms, when i know it was nevr that pretty. cold, stiff, covered in puke in her childhood bed. it was never beautiful. it was never romantic. my friend is gone. my friend, i loved you so so so so much. i've somehow made it to this point without crying up until now. i wish i could've told you how important you were to me. i regret it every day. i think of you so often. i'm an actor now, i wish you could see. i'm still making music too. i wish you could hear. i think i'll make another song for you soon. i promise i'll come visit you soon, i think you knew i was probably your only friend visiting at first. you're not the only friend i've lost but you're the only one i still cry for. god i loved you. you deserved to live past 20. my 21st birthday was so painful, knowing that i'd outlived you even though you were older than me. you didn't deserve to die like that. i'll never get it out of my head. i've tried to kill myself with drugs multiple times since then, i think 2018 and 2019 were some of the worst years of my life. things have only recently started to get better. i dove off the deep end for awhile, it came and went for years after that. i still watch videos of you when i'm sad. i have a polaroid of us still. it was a pic of us from hunters house. i always wonder how many pics and videos of us kelso and our friends have of us that i'll never see. i remember when you nearly broke your fucking back surfing, you were covered in scabs it was so awful to look at and to touch. i still wear the hoodie i was wearing in that photo even though its falling apart. i still wear the red flannel i kept in my car, i remember you used to wear it when i'd pick you up every time you forgot a jacket. i wish it still smelled like you but its been to many years. andeaux gave me an abstract filth shirt off his back at your memorial concert, so i have that. i felt so excluded. i've never properly grieved you, i'm not sure if i ever will. i'm not sure what to do with myself, i feel like the damage has already been done. sometimes i want to reach out to your family but it feels wrong. i felt so alone. so so alone. you were the person i would call if i was grieving, how do i call you? where did you go? sometimes i feel like a loser, like i need to get over it. i'm not sure how you get over it. i just wish you were here, thats all.

i never stopped loving you