Death. It's around more than people realize. Because no one wants to talk about it or hear about it. It's too sad. Too painful. Too hard. The list of reasons is endless.

Actually I'm taking her for a ride," I say slyly, inching my hand up the back of Ella's leg and she slaps the back of my head playfully. "I'm taking you for a ride in my car. And you think I'm the pervert.

So I let my shame own me, kill me, wilt me away into a thousand dead flakes, knowing if I kept it all in, she would never have to learn the dirtiness that was forever inside me--the bad, the ugly, the twisted. She could go on living her life happy, just like she deserved.

I'll always be with you, inside and out," she reads. "Through hard times and helpless ones, through love, through doubt.

It's amazing how the things you remember forever are the things you'd rather forget and the things you desperately want to grasp onto seem to slip away like sand in the wind.

You left me, ripped out my heart, and then came back acting like a robot, and you know what? We made it through. You and I, good or bad, belong together. We make each other whole.

I realize that even through the hard times I’m sure we’ll face, I’ll never be able to walk away from her. -Micha