When you create something and put it out into the world, it's yours. Yours to cherish and nurture and remember, regardless of success or failure. Many a story is perceived to have fallen on deaf ears but there's always one who recalls, one who returns again and again. You.

Opinions and ideas can shape or warp concepts into nightmares, memories into a fractured past and things you'd rather forget. People can be cruel. Words can be cruel. Time can be the cruellest of all.

 I've seen many a creator fall to the victim of such a fate, myself included. Some have sprouted too early, drowning in their own lake of promises and protection only to destroy themselves on the inside. Others have stagnated in the constant void of nothingness, clinging to what little envy they have left. They desire what the early seedlings have until that heavy burden of acceptance and want cannot be returned. There's no receipt for a five second comment.

Things don't work out the way you plan. You lose hope. You lose companionship in their shared pain until no one cares but you. Not caring is a difficult thing for me to process. The love that is lost is remembered only in the fleeting well wishers that you hoped would appear years before they did. That was when you needed them most. 

Now it is only a sharp barb of clarity, a remembrance of not the warmth of sunlight but the harsh brittle cold that dug down deep into your bones no matter how hard you fought back. You knew it was inevitable. Yet you did so regardless, burdened by light until it was yours who suffered the most. 

I can't imagine how that felt. The death of a world by the hands who created it. Not crushed or cut quick but slowly smothered by those who adored it most. I adored it too. How could I not? We thrived in what could and what came before, only to shut down what was needed. If I could go back and change things, I doubt it would matter. The one who makes the rules isn't me and the ones who thought they could break what they adored most. But I still care. 

Once something is in my head it doesn't leave. Makes things difficult for a negative magnet like me. False words aren't truly lies if you recall them the most. But words hurt and expectations hit hard when you long for the past and predict what's to come. It wasn't what I expected. But it made me think. I liked the idea but when you know your characters better than yourself you make your point known. I never knew if that was enough for you. I doubt I ever will.

To those who read and demand more from your authors. I know it wasn't what you wanted. I know I could have done better but I was angry. I was angry at them, at me and at my own work. The work I started since the beginning. I don't hate it anymore. I hope you don't too. But I still remember and I hate myself for it. Part of me hates you too but hate is a strong word to describe something that's no longer there in your mind. It'll always be there in mine. It's how I am.

 I don't hate the idea of improvement but I wish I knew I was capable of it sooner. I know you did but it came crashing down with your disappointment. It's what I remember most and it sucks. I liked your enthusiasm but things take time and I guess you got bored of a stubborn nobody who wasn't going to change her tune. I still won't. 

My music is as strange as my writing but I love it all the same. Some days, I don't but I guess that's OK. When I don't, I remember you and all the others and think of the world I knew, fading in my memories and hope that someday you'll find the strength to return again. That world is still waiting on a knife edge horizon but waiting all the same. My words won't change it. Maybe yours will.