Before this Snow Melts

Dear Death,

Nothing is going right for me. Well, it never has. When I look in the past, I realize that I've always been alone; always. There has never been anyone by my side at all. I have not moved forward, I can't move forward. I've been born in this world with a wall in front of me. I've never helped anyone, nor been helped. There is no place for me. I will watch the people around me as they travel the sidewalks, the cars on the roads smoking out their vapor. They all have destinations in front of them. But I don't. I only watch. I'm the dead-weight, the useless, the left-behind, the loser, the one that has no place. A month ago I lost it and ran away. From everything. My grades are terrible, my parents abusive, and I have no friend to call my own. I feel so alone.

When I watch the cruelty of the continuing world, I sit in the bathroom stalls at a park I don't even know the name of just to keep warm. I sleep in there. Just to stay warm, I have to endure the stink. Why is the world so beautiful with the pure snow outside? It makes me feel so cold. Everything has started to feel so far-away. I live in this body, but I don't feel it. This isn't my life, it's someone else's story. I somehow got trapped here though, and I can't move. Why is the world continuing without me? I hate it. Wait for me. Why won't you wait for me? Haven't you claimed me? Aren't I alive? Don't I have any place at all? Why am I here? What is my purpose? Who am I? I don't know anymore...what should I do?

I was watching a family a few days ago. There was a little boy among them that couldn't stop smiling. Their family was very close. The father would hitch the little boy up onto his shoulders and pretend like they were sailing in the snow to far lands. The mother would laugh with them. I watched them and felt something I'd never felt before, something I have no words for. Envy? No, it wasn't that. I just thought.........I just thought that it was nice. Something like that.

I don't have any solutions with my life anymore. I have nowhere to go. I could see that kindness exists, and so does love, but I will never have it. I will never grasp that in my palm and claim it as my own. I was born alone, and I'm sure that as the world continues, that I will die alone. As I read my words I can hear the weakness and I feel like a coward, but it is the truth. Have you ever felt your heart break? It's not just sadness or something that happens suddenly. But it really feels like its bleeding, like it broke and can't hold your life in it's beat anymore. Before this snow melts away, I want to pass on. Because I have no solutions, I want to hurry and be reborn in the next world. I'm writing this as I'm tying my rope. Things will certainly be different there. I'll find love for sure.

So before this snow melts away, I want to remember that little boys face. Sunny and pure, just like that. I want to hold it in my chest as a dear memory and hope for the next world. I want to steer my ship with it. And so, before this beautiful snow melts and disappears, I'm saying goodbye.
And hello.

Please steer me to the next world.

-Aaron

Meow, Mr. Death

Meow, Mr. Death,

I have to thank-you for all you've done for me. If it wasn't for you, I would be a simple carcass on the side of the road. But you gave me life and a purpose. You might've just passed me, and gave mercy because my fur is the same color as yours, but I will always serve you. The young kids that took a bat and some rocks to my head were bursting with life, and said something about my being bad luck because of my color. I ran and ran, and they chased and chased. At that moment I hated this color, if it was to be my demise, then I would bite at it with all my might. And after my head was sunken and bloodied, and bruises riddled my body, and my ears were torn, and my tail went limp in a straight line, I could feel your presence for the first time. You were black, like me, and I knew it because the white of life is the opposite. The giant kids were in white halos, and smiling in their game, but you were black, and frowning in the reality. I felt when you touched my head, and petted me with your gentle voice, that I was being healed. I no longer felt discarded toward my color; if it could be this kind.

I now live in heaven; a place that is not really a place, really, but a state. I am happy now, and have two tails that ripple in the boisterous wind of the world. You changed me so I could never feel anymore pain. So I love you. Whenever I catch scent of your aura, I run as fast as I can, so that maybe if I can find you there, then I can rub my head against you and purr. This is heaven. I am always mewing happily for joy, and there is nothing else I want then for you to pick me up and say, "You have been good, little kitty."

The white always call me monster when they see me, but I pay no mind anymore. I am only here to serve you. I will love you forever. Although, I do have one question. Why is it that whenever I pass someone on the road, that the people around them all soon wear our color?

-Pepper

With love, hatred follows after

Mr Reaper,

Mom woke up this morning crying as usual.  But something was different.  She looked at me and got angry.  "Get out!" she said, "Get OUT!"
I said "But mom it's breakfast."
"Don't care for food or lousy medicine anymore.  I want you to go, Winston.  You're the reason why He keeps leaving!"
I started to cry, because I was confused and I asked why.  She sighed heavily and told me:
"Of course you I met Death in my dream.  This time I was sure he would take me, but I didn't want him to leave me again.  I told him to stop weeping for me and take me away!  But now I now why he weeps... You came up behind me, where I couldn't see you, but he saw it all"
"But Mamma I--" I tried to say, but she interjected
"No--don't lie to me Win, I know small children like you.  He saw you and he wept and left weeping.  That's why you cannot be here anymore.  I want to go, but it seems Death is hating me for leaving you."  Her voice went rasp and miserable again. "Please, go Winston, I can't stay here any longer.  Life can't have me anymore but Death doesn't want me with you to be taken care of.  Grandma will take care of you now."
I was so hurt with bitterness that my tears could not be held in and I left (dropping the breakfast tray and all).
Why Death why?  Why do you make Mom want me to go?  Why am I keeping her hear?  How can you even love with the way you are?  I don't love you anymore.  I should have never loved you in the first place.  I should have hated Mom.  There.  Now you can take her away. Take her away fast before I love her again.   
I hate you!

Winston Bartly 

I love you too

Death,

I wish I knew you more.  Mom knows you so well.  Every morning when I wake her for breakfast and pills, she has tears in her eyes and she says "no, no. NO! Come back to me my Reaper.  Why do you leave me still?  Why come now and leave me all alone!"
I ask her then, "Mama, why are you crying?  Nobody was here but me and Gramma."
She tells me then, "Oh, Winston, I saw Him in my dream, I saw Death.  He was so sad, Winston, so sad.  He almost took me away, but he wept and left me!  He left me in this rotten place!"  and then she takes her breakfast and lays in bed all day crying.  She's not the same anymore.  She skinny and she doesn't love me.  She loves you.
But I still love my mom.  I will love anything she loves.  I've loved the flowers she planted, the crack in the sidewalk and the tall man in the tux, so that she will love me.  I love you too Reaper.  I don't know how much I'll love you but I'll try.

Gramma says you take people away.  That makes me think: do you know were my Dad is?  Did you take him away?  I'm sure you'll know where he when.  How long do you take people away?  Is it a long time?  Will you take Mom away, and for how long?
Will you be like that man in the tux who took Mom away all night and she woke me up all happy and glad.  If you're like that, then I really want you to take her away so that she'll come back happy and glad.

From

Winston Bartly