I keep thinking you're coming back. I sat here for eight months waiting for you to call, IM me, or just leave me an email...but it never happened. I waited and waited for you to come online this past year, but I guess you never heard me crying on my bed. I read through our emails so many times there were water-marks all over my screen...But it didn't bring you back. I asked everyone I knew for some sign of you...To know if you were okay, if you were alive, to know if you still loved me...No one knew. A bunch of my friends keep telling me that I shouldn't be crying anymore, that you were just a phase I went through...Well you know what Joe, you were the first guy I ever loved, and it hurts that you left me. I filled up journal entry after journal entry of handwritten prayers for you to come back to me, tear stains littering the page. I ripped myself to pieces with a blade in hopes that it would make my pain disappear...That it would make the emptiness and the lonliness go away, but it didn't. I lost myself after you left me Joe...You left me alone. You left my heart shattered in too many pieces to piece back together, sharp as glass. Kristen still sits there every night and hugs me close when I break down crying because of your poem on my wall...It doesn't matter that it's not a masterpiece, you wrote it. I got with Justin only five days after you disappeared in hopes that it would deaden my pain...it didn't.

Remember the time I spilled the strawberry fritters and they flew at the window? Remember how hard you laughed when I couldn't get them all picked up, and the puppy stole one and took off with it? Using it as a toy? Remember that Joe? Remember when I fell off the ladder because I hadn't eaten enough and I got dizzy? Remember how you told me to get help but I didn't listen? Remember how you always praised my poetry no matter how bad it was, or how much I hated it? Do you remember all that Joe?

Did you see my tears as they hit the floor last year? Were you looking down at me as I broke down in class from singing a love song in choir? Did you watch me carve your name into my leg? Were you standing there when I slit my wrists and prayed to any kind of god there was that he'd take me away from here? Did you fucking see any of that Joe?

Did you see how depressed and antisocial I got? How scary and upsetting my poetry became? Did you see all the poems with your name in the title, or in reference to what happened between us? Do you have any clue how much you tore me apart by leaving me? Do you know what it feels like to have someone take your heart, then break it down to nothing because they abandoned you?

Maybe it wasn't your fault you left. Maybe your mother got sick again, or your sickness got worse....Maybe you're laying in a hospital somewhere, or maybe you died last year. I don't know what happened to you because you just left me. Am I still important to you Joe? Do you remember how happy you were when you knew I was smiling? Or how I laughed when you said "warner brothers?" in response to my "wb"? Remember how you always said "front" when I said "back"? I'd like to believe that you're living in a big house somewhere with a wife and kids...I'd like to believe that you really did live through last year and that you just lost your internet and weren't able to contact me.

There are days I still wake up and think I'm going to see your name online when I sign on to yahoo...but you're never there. And every fucking time I can feel tears flow down my cheeks because you left me. You didn't leave me an offline saying "good bye", you didn't say you'd love me always and forever like I always told you...You never promised not to leave me Joe! You never fucking promised me...

It was because of you that it took Bryan three hours to get me to say "I love you" out loud again. It's because of you that there was an empty hole in my heart for this past year...

Sure, my friends all think I should just forget about you now and move on. I've got Warren and I love him to death. But I promised I wouldn't forget you Joe, and I meant it. I haven't forgotten you even if you've forgotten me. I'd like to think you still remember me as a girl you loved...but maybe you don't. Maybe you live in a mansion with a rich whore of a wife and all you ever worry about is whether or not you have more money than everyone else. But that isn't like you is it Joe?

I kept trying to replace you...I tried so fucking hard...Justin didn't work..he wasn't close enough...After I broke up with him for the second time, I knew there wasn't going to be another you. And you know what Joe? IT HURTS. You never find out how much love really hurts until the one person you trully love just disappears out of your life one day, and still hasn't come back a year later.

I have Warren and I love him so much...But he's still not you. See though Joe, Warren promised me something you never did, that he'll love me forever and that he won't leave me. Why didn't you promise me? Maybe I wasn't meant to be with you...I don't know and I guess I'll never find out. Even if you did come back now, I wouldn't go back to you..I couldn't handle getting hurt again.

I've woken up 355 different mornings only to find out I was living another day without you beside me. I was flying solo on a path I didn't know how to fly...But somehow I kept flying. Were you there holding me up Joe? Maybe I just imagined you in my mind...But if I just imagined you, why does it hurt this much that you're gone?

I wish I could tell you that I've come to terms with you leaving, but I haven't. I wish I could say that I didn't still cry myself to sleep from time to time because it still hurts. Warren filled the hole you made in my heart Joe, and I'm lucky to have him. I'm not going to make the same mistake with him I made with you.

I know the last thing I did was yell at you...Sometimes I still wonder if maybe I hadn't yelled if you'd still be here. Maybe if I'd just gone to bed that night you wouldn't have left me here alone...You don't have a clue about how I feel Joe. Maybe if I told you I loved you a little bit more, and argued with you a little bit less you'd still be there to hug me and kiss me goodnight. But you know what? Wishes and Maybe's won't help me any now. You left me Joe, and I've finally come to terms with the fact that you aren't coming back to me.

I told Kristen that I wrote this for her...But you know what, I was able to write it because of you. "I wish I could explain this feeling...The dead emptiness, the lonliness, but it's unexplainable. All I can do is lose myself in a playlist that seems never ending, and wish that I was somewhere else. Space, lost in the forest, asleep, trapped away in my mind...Anywhere but here. I wish I could explain that to you, but I can't. I'm missing that one little piece of things...That one emotion that makes everything okay, that makes saying "I love you" seem like it's important. I don't know where it went, but until it comes back, I can't explain anything to you."

I loved you so fucking much Joe...Do you understand that? Do you know just how badly you killed me inside when it finally hit me that you were gone? That I was never going to hear your jokes again? I wish I could show you exactly what you've done to me since you left...But I can't. I'm still going to wish each and every day that you're alive and well somewhere, and that somewhere in your heart you still have a place for me. But then again maybe you never will...

Maybe you don't even remember me.