A Ballad of Phantoms and Hope

by K.M. Moronova

Lanston, Hey, you. This is the last letter I’ll give you. Well, maybe not the last, but you’ve shown me that we can talk about the things that happened to us. And I want to share those things with you as easily as you do with me. I want to watch you continue to draw, letting the beauty of your mind infect the pages. But I’ll leave you with this until then. The last part of my tragic story. My depression grew after high school. The people in my life weren’t kind of my illness. They urged it on even. Do you want to know how I died? I’ll tell you. It was me. My murderer was my illness; it took me young, naive. I jumped from the bridge and fell to the depths of the world. Where the darkness finally came for me. I hope you don’t hate me… I know what I did was wrong, but what if I told you I fought it really fucking hard and for a long time? What if I told you that I searched for the light but couldn’t find it? Would I still be painted as a bad person? The one who only wanted attention? I’ll tell you another secret. I didn’t want attention. I just wanted to be gone. I wanted to be away from all the cruel things that made me hate myself. The words that made me hate myself. The bridge we met on, the bench I stood on and pulled roses from, was the memorial bench the local church placed for me. They didn’t put my name on the plaque. My family didn’t want their last name muddied with my sin, so roses it was. Ophelia roses. I’m stuck on earth because I was taught people who die by sui...