M Galante (15)
eulogy to a person you once loved
emma grace,
i remember when i wrote your name for the first time. it was sloppy, crooked, and smudged because i’m left handed and that’s just the way it is. i remember when i used to take pride in your name because it belonged to two people who never met you but probably would have loved you because they loved our mom. i remember the first time it felt like your name belonged to someone else and the exact day and place i was when i decided to shorten it. did i ever truly love emma grace? it always felt so contradictory. sometimes it felt like home, sometimes it was foreign. i think maybe i loved the idea of it because it had background and history. i always knew it wasn’t me but does that mean i’ve never felt self-love? or maybe it's society's fault or the fact that my brain is wired to be biologically in-between. there are good qualities about the both of us. for one, we could both write, and for the people who stick around long enough, we treat them pretty well. we’re also terrifyingly smart. but there are bad things, too. we are both defensive and believe that humans are inherently bad and that it's our choice to change or not. i tried to change: i got rid of you for a reason, right? you wore a mask and you know it. you were afraid to be alone because you thought people were going to drop dead right then and then you would be left alone with your thoughts. you made me feel ashamed to be alive. emma grace, you were selfish and naïve. you were also dying, not from a disease or an illness, but i watched you fade in and out of existence. you would cry every time you were behind a closed door when there was no one there to watch and wonder what the fuck was wrong with you. what you were feeling was not visible from the outside and it still isn’t, but i am alive and i am so goddamn thankful. i am not fading, i am not on the outside looking in, i am not wreaking havoc on my insides. i still have pictures of you on my wall because i don’t need to forget you, i want to remember you, mostly because i am not you. i remember the first time i received a card with my name written in it. it was for my 15th birthday. i don’t know if it was written in my mom’s handwriting or my dad’s, but it was there, and you weren’t. i didn’t feel ashamed anymore, not for one second did i feel ashamed. you are not dead because i did not love you; you are dead because i did not love myself.
M Galante is 15 years old and is from Portland, Oregon. They are non-binary and use they/them pronouns. They spend their time writing, which they have been doing since they were about five years old, and doing visual art. Someday M wishes to become a doctor. M runs the account @dont.ask.dont_tell on Instagram, which is where they post their writing.
eulogy to a person you once loved
emma grace,
i remember when i wrote your name for the first time. it was sloppy, crooked, and smudged because i’m left handed and that’s just the way it is. i remember when i used to take pride in your name because it belonged to two people who never met you but probably would have loved you because they loved our mom. i remember the first time it felt like your name belonged to someone else and the exact day and place i was when i decided to shorten it. did i ever truly love emma grace? it always felt so contradictory. sometimes it felt like home, sometimes it was foreign. i think maybe i loved the idea of it because it had background and history. i always knew it wasn’t me but does that mean i’ve never felt self-love? or maybe it's society's fault or the fact that my brain is wired to be biologically in-between. there are good qualities about the both of us. for one, we could both write, and for the people who stick around long enough, we treat them pretty well. we’re also terrifyingly smart. but there are bad things, too. we are both defensive and believe that humans are inherently bad and that it's our choice to change or not. i tried to change: i got rid of you for a reason, right? you wore a mask and you know it. you were afraid to be alone because you thought people were going to drop dead right then and then you would be left alone with your thoughts. you made me feel ashamed to be alive. emma grace, you were selfish and naïve. you were also dying, not from a disease or an illness, but i watched you fade in and out of existence. you would cry every time you were behind a closed door when there was no one there to watch and wonder what the fuck was wrong with you. what you were feeling was not visible from the outside and it still isn’t, but i am alive and i am so goddamn thankful. i am not fading, i am not on the outside looking in, i am not wreaking havoc on my insides. i still have pictures of you on my wall because i don’t need to forget you, i want to remember you, mostly because i am not you. i remember the first time i received a card with my name written in it. it was for my 15th birthday. i don’t know if it was written in my mom’s handwriting or my dad’s, but it was there, and you weren’t. i didn’t feel ashamed anymore, not for one second did i feel ashamed. you are not dead because i did not love you; you are dead because i did not love myself.
M Galante is 15 years old and is from Portland, Oregon. They are non-binary and use they/them pronouns. They spend their time writing, which they have been doing since they were about five years old, and doing visual art. Someday M wishes to become a doctor. M runs the account @dont.ask.dont_tell on Instagram, which is where they post their writing.