I’ve had a few dreams already come true, but some I’m still working on. But with hard work and dedication, I’m sure I’ll make it happen. My most recent dream that came true, was being featured in a best seller’s book.

Growing up, I always used to read the, Chicken Noodle Soup For The Soul books. They were books made for kids, teenagers, adults, pretty much for anyone who enjoyed them.

They had inspirational stories, poems and sometimes even songs written in them from real people and their real life experiences. True stories. I loved reading them whenever I was down, upset or just needed something to lift my spirits. Those stories of others always inspired me in some ways. Ways that helped me understand that whatever I was facing at the moment, others had gone through them too, if not sometimes worse. But somehow, those whose story I was reading, they made it out on the other side of whatever it was that they were facing. Which gave me hope and strengthen my faith that I would too.

After reading those books, I always dreamed of being featured in one of those books. So that I could tell my story just like they did, and inspire others, just like how they inspired me. I just didn’t know how I could make that happen. I didn’t give up, I just was unsure of how it would happen.

Until one day, while strolling through Facebook, I saw an ad for a writing contest for a website called Unsealed. At first, I thought that it’s just a chance to write and release some of the things that I needed to release as while starting my healing journey. But then I saw and realized that it was so much more. That it’s a community of people, writers, artists, friends to share their stories and also listen to each other, to uplift one another. Which I love. Not to mention, my story that I shared would be featured in a book. A book that is very similar to the books that I read and wanted so badly to be a part of. It wasn’t that exact book, but still my dream of my story being shared in a book, for a chance to be read by someone that could also inspire them……. My dream finally came true.

I do wish to do more, because I have a lot of stories to share. I want to take this time to thank everyone involved in the creation and success of The Unsealed community/website/books. You’ve helped me continue to do the work necessary for my healing journey, and you helped me make one of my dreams come true all while being introduced to some amazing people that I too can learn from. Sharing our stories in love and showing true compassion towards one another. See, dreams really do come true. True Story.

Dear 8.1 billion of you that I share this planet with:

The vast majority of you I will never meet. We walk separate paths that statistically – will simply never cross in a meaningful way. To the one waking up on the opposite side of earth than me today. To the one I see on the news. To the one who made a TikTok that made me giggle but I’ll never remember your name. To the one who took their child to the very same park I took my son to hours later, but never met.

We live in an era where we’re more connected than ever, and also more divided than ever. The media spins a tale that we are so very different from one another. And yes, it is somewhat true – we are different. We have different backgrounds, different privileges, different beliefs; but one thing remains more true:

We are more similar than we are different.

In another life, that girl you look down upon could be your best friend. In a parallel universe, the homeless man you silently judge on the street corner could be your brother. In an alternate reality, an older woman bagging your groceries could be your grandmother. If there was a glitch in the matrix, that infant crying in the seat next to you on the flight could be your own child.

We are all human beings with beating hearts. If you were to sit down and have a conversation with an individual you think couldn’t be more unlike yourself, I bet you would leave that conversation feeling otherwise.

We are more similar than we are different, and that is beautiful.

I love the way you never give up. I love the way no matter how ruthless, mean, harsh kids were you never stopped being you. You never gave in and became a bully yourself. You always loved so hard with all your heart. You were always there for anyone and helped them to see the light out of the darkest times possible. You had such charisma and character always going above and beyond. You took the cards you were dealt and handled them.

I remember watching your dark shadows of all different shapes and people, day and night, move across the landscape. I never knew your name.
I witnessed your worlds and dangers which only I could see and experience;
being buried alive in clouds of earth and rain isn’t nice you know.

You released a ripple inside my soul; wild; untamable; starving for my own flesh and blood and soul.
It did not take long for it to become a tsunami, an ephemeral disaster of reality’s true desire to end Humanity, breaking me again, and again, and again against the sharp cliffs of my patch-worked psyche.

I have no need to tame you. Not when you bring me such euphoria.
I have no desire to cease your wonderful, yet terrific cursed blessing of mine.

You allow the worlds I imagine, and the danger I make up, and the death I create flow from my mind and onto the pages I endlessly write in now. An addiction to the tsunami I can never be free of. An addict seeking the fix my mind gives you.

How does it feel now that I have become the ripple? The tsunami? I bet you’re starving to fuel this shared addiction of ours; your imagination to my reality.

So, what should I write next?

I used to be embarrassed
of my sensitivity, my feelings, my heart
I was made to feel ashamed,
like my softness was a weakness
But what I didn’t realize then
was that those who shamed me
felt threatened by my vulnerability
and my capacity to feel
because that was a weakness of their own
Either because they could not understand
what it was like to feel so deeply
Or because they did not know how to respond
to something so profound
Or because they were unable to sit
in the discomfort of vulnerability
Whatever the reason,
it was always their problem-
not mine

My vulnerability, my capacity to feel, my softness,
and my unapologetic need
to express what’s in my heart
This is my strength,
my superpower,
my bulletproof vest
protecting me from regret
ensuring I always stay on the path
that’s intended for me

Sometimes it feels like a curse
to feel everything so deeply
and to be so painfully aware of it all
but I’ve learned to love this about myself
It’s rare, it makes me me
It lets me live my life in full color
I experience every single day to its full capacity
my senses always heightened
my heart sinking and swelling
countless times each day
I feel the entire spectrum of emotion
with burning intensity
all in one day
and I wouldn’t have it any other way
Anything else would feel
boring, dull, muted, incomplete
At least this way,
I get to feel and experience
every single thing
that life has in store for me

My heart, my sensitivity, my capacity to feel,
these things were never a weakness
I’ve just spent a lifetime surrounded
by people who did not understand my soul
but now I understand me
and that’s all I need

I had every intention of writing something perfect for this submission, as any artist knows – perfection is the antithesis of the process. Please enjoy, I apologize for any typographical errors, this is being submitted as a first draft – I wrote this in my Uber on the way home from the airport.

Tonight, while flying home from my childhood home, I witnessed a man die for the first time. At 7:18pm, I bought my favorite candy – skittles – and a bottle of water. Boarding started at 7:23 and I was gleeful to make the timing after the abhorrent flight adventure of the past 5 days. I texted my mom, thanking her for the meals she made me while I played cards with my dad each night. There is nothing more privileged than getting to lay your head to rest in your childhood bedroom. My room, once painted hot pink – now the walls are beige – is filled with books, journals, cds and sports participation medals. When I lay in my childhood bed and stare at the ceiling, I can faintly see the pencil reacting from 2000 stating “I love Luke”. Luke aka my elementary school LOVE. It only takes a couple of mornings back home for me to become annoyed with the noise level in the morning. As mom makes coffee, dad opens the garage to leave for work and my sister comes over for breakfast with her son – it only takes a couple of days for me to groan “ughhhh I can’t wait to be back in MY home, MY apartment where none of this noise wakes me up!” I dreamt of being able to say that to myself when those walls were still hot pink. Fantasizing about the cities I’d live in, the adventures I’d encounter. I often lived in my head, seeing the promise of optimism in the world. When I was a child, I believed that the big blue lake sparkled because mermaids had hidden diamonds under the sand. When I stared at the tall trees and their magnificent branches, I thought about how fairies and caterpillars must cohabitate. Because something and everything as wondrous as nature in this physical world MUST include a bit of magic. As I’ve aged, that wonder and amazement has somehow persisted. Through heart break, depression, abuse, loss, desperation – that glimpse of the world with the sparkling waters and magnificent tree branches remain. Albeit, stifled. Pushed down so as to not seem gullible or weak. Compartmentalized so that I can be taken seriously, the way I so badly wanted everyone – specifically my love, Luke – to take me seriously in 2000. My life’s path has been jagged with twists and turns, like most. But when I go home, my home home, not my apartment in Atlanta. Not the rooms all around the country that I so willingly shared the name of HOME with. It is in those moments that I hear her again, whispering in my inner conscious – do you see how the dew collects on those flower petals? Magic. Do you see how the sun shines through the cumulous clouds? Magic. Do you want to go an adventure? Where and how far? The whispers grow as I’m cocooned in my childhood bed, watching the narratives paint themselves over the beige walls until they return to hot pink.

Skittles in hand, I watched a man who was maybe 70 years old topple forward as Zone 4 was boarding the flight. I was Zone 5 and eager to get back home to my apartment in Atlanta. Someone screamed as individuals ran to the large body and turned him over. He was bleeding on his forehead and his limbs were limp. A civilian nurse immediately began CPR after a gentleman yelled “he’s not breathing, call 911”! The rest of the flight backed up to give the first responders space when they arrived at 7:32. They ripped his jeans to give him a shot that I assume was adrenaline, and hooked him up to the AED machine. “CLEAR” they yelled as the man next to me asked the gate attendants when they expected we could board again. A woman standing next to me grabbed my hand, it was then that I realized that we were watching this man leave this physical realm. As tears filled the gate area around me, my own life flashed before my eyes. I thought about my mom’s meals, how loud my family was every morning, playing cards with my dad. I thought about the glistening waters, hugging my dog and how it felt to lay in my childhood bed among my memories. I thought about this man, his family, how did he once see the world? Where was his home? Did he ever get to experience love or feel the magic I so firmly once believed in? By 7:46, they had rolled his body onto the EMS transport and off he went with police escort. First responders left behind shook their heads, wiping off sweat. We were boarded and off to Atlanta by 8:01pm.
I now sit in my apartment and am staring at the ceiling, wishing I could be home again. Nothing feels the same as it did when I bought those skittles.
I have prayed but now, I’ll write this letter to my inner child, reminding her of all that life hopes to bear.

Dear KK,

Never lose your heart. Your sense of humanity. You have experienced the darkest hours and still held on to the light. Your ferocious kindness is a gift, not a weakness to be stifled. Your lust of for learning, your compassion for humanity is a gift – not a hindrance. Although there will be days that the shine doesn’t feel as bright, find the glitter. Sprinkle it for yourself and others. Believe that good will always prevail. Perfection has never been what you seek, stay the course of adventure. Steady the hand that convinces you the world is beige, rather than hot pink. You are all you ever imagined and you have all you could have ever hoped for. Never stop calling in those you love, so that they too can see the vastness of life from your magical perspective. Remember that home is a feeling, one that can be carried with you to many new places and will hold you tight when at terminal A18 in Detroit. Time is an illusion, 40 minutes can feel like a lifetime and for some. I love that life impacts you and you hold it even more close.

Until you can no longer, be love. Be big. Be you.

To my better half,

I would typically start with something like, “Hope this letter finds you well”, but we both know that’s not the case, so I’ll skip the pleasantries and cut to the chase.

Buckle up, kid. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

I know that’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the truth. You’re trying to tune out the fighting, doors slamming, and that bathroom mirror shattering into hundreds of pieces. She’s hoping you’re too young to understand what’s happening or that you won’t remember when you get older, but it’s all still there, locked away in a dusty little cabinet of dark memories. To be fair, most days you won’t think about it, but you can still feel it, like a stain on the carpet that you forget about until company comes over and the whole time you’re wondering if they notice.

I could offer you reassurance that none of this is your fault; that she’s doing her absolute best to protect you, and if she knew how it was affecting you she would have found a way out a lot sooner. I could tell you how liberating it’ll be when you finally watch that gray house get smaller and smaller until it fades in the rearview knowing you will never see it again, or how a musty cot feels like a California king when you can rest your head knowing you won’t be woken in the middle of the night to sneak out to the minivan while he’s still asleep and can’t stop us from leaving.

But I know that’s not enough. You’re living through a hell so few could comprehend, and it’s not fair. No amount of sympathy or advice is going to change that. And even when that nightmare ends it seems like there’s always another obstacle to work around, another person trying to take control, or another consequence of someone else’s bad decisions you have to overcome.

The only thing I can tell you that might give you the slightest bit of hope is this; you are the best part of me. When I can’t get out of bed because the weight is just too heavy, or I feel like I’m not enough, I reach for you. I stare past my reflection in that broken mirror and call to that little girl who is somehow strong enough to get up every morning with the hope that today will be better than yesterday. That girl is scared but strong. She’s angry, but she’s kind. The flames you’re fighting now become the guiding light that brings me back when I forget who I am and what I’m capable of.

This is long overdue because you won’t hear it from anyone else, but I’m sorry. And I am so proud of you.

All my love,

– Alyssa

Don’t let know one steer you wrong
You hungry for knowledge and the gossip and naysayers are hungry for your thundercloud
Wisdom
I guarantee you a lifetime of ups and downs
I guarantee you will feel the Ray’s of unease bite like a naw of a kitchen blade
Triumph
You have plenty of awards
None impresses more than the smile though
Cause time doesn’t show
You cry and want no more
I love you Chica
That’s my pen saying you true
A true blue

Dear little me,
The way you dance like the world is your stage
Is something you’ll do even as you age
You say everything on your mind
Without realizing it might not be kind
But you never mean to hurt anyone
You’re just trying to have a little fun
After all, you are little me
The little girl who wishes to see
Everything as far as the moonshine beams

You love to climb trees and be one with nature
Always looking out for your next big adventure
A love you’ll carry with you in the future
As you grow up to be a bloomer
Don’t ever hold back on how you flourish
For one day, you’ll have others you will nourish

You are fire
You are light
You are doing everything right
You may only be five
But I hope you grow up to thrive

Yours truly, future you.

So lovely.
Say it with me, so lovely.
The whispers constantly there, who owns them?
The feeling constantly fear, who hones it?
The path constant effort, Let’s show it.
Freestyle life, whispers *hone it*
Perseverance, *renowned it*
Simplicity, always rejoicing in it.
Warrior, no beef, peace, humanitarian, fruitarian, little u.
An open vessel. All emotions, wide open. let them all in now.

When I think of a younger me
Sometimes the memories are blurry
And I cannot always see clearly
But I remember a feeling of being carefree.

I hear my siblings tell tales
Of all my wiles and wisecracks,
The jokes that I would spin
To get out of trouble, my mother stifling a grin.

There are t-shirts and programs
From musicals and plays
Belonging a girl who was not too shy
To enjoy centerstage.

Sometimes as I look back I am embarrassed
By how I now let my anxieties harass
And keep me hidden away,
Too afraid to say what I need to say.

But then I think of all she has taught me–
This younger version, unafraid to stand out–
To let my emotions be felt, big or small,
And not shy away from being different at all.

Her confidence was not based on numbers
From an online following or a scale.
She did not chase success or popularity,
There was no cookie cutter path or well worn trail.

She loved seeing other laugh and smile,
The reality was, she did not feel the need to impress.
And if she saw someone who seemed lonely
She would pull them in to join the rest.

There was no box she could be put in,
There was no being “too much,”
There was no touchy feely, drama queen,
There was no “not good enough,”

There was simply being happy,
There were people who truly saw me,
There was being bright and bubbly,
There was the possibility of becoming anything.

And sometimes when I think of that little girl
I want to wrap her up in my arms, hold her near,
And whisper to her softly,
“I will always be right here.”

Marionette

water raging against rocks: molecule against molecule like skin against skin,
my mother clawing at my father,
erosion creates the shore. corporal sand

i’m curious/“what is that in your hands?” is it the tides?
the water is a spray chisel to sculpt my glass figure,
throw it in the kiln/“what are you imagining?” why are you taking so long?

some days you force me to forget the pain of who i’ve loved,
other days you force me to remember the faces i hate,
most days i can’t tell what you want from me.

do you just like thinking about the past? is it so bad that i want to move on?
no, remember that as an adult you’ve forgiven the person you’ve hated the most.
remember so that the next time you look into her eyes, you know to hold your breath. don’t drown.

the current rages against the bed, deep and wide i’m so sorry i touched you.
there’s a beautiful glassy rock now in the deepest depths of the ocean next to the earth’s core waiting to be discovered,
the sea carries out the spirit, and i finally float.

from innocence, glass beneath the surface of the sea,
the waves flow like dance,
to tides, you’re free to behave as you wish

a mask made of sand reveals the shape of my body,
water rock and sand belong to the guiding hand holding the strings,
i am a marionette carved by the currents,
pulled by unseen forces, my movements not my own.

i was in the hospital with my future self as a roommate, he scared me so bad because i thought i’d never heal.
i gave up on myself like i always do,
it matters not to you. i’m my future self looking into the past, and i’ll say nothing because there is nothing for you to hear,

there’s a storm behind your eyes,
just make it to the center,
and what belongs to you will find you.

and you let me heal by taking everything away like every time before.
i am not myself when i’m not alone,
every fracture of my mind makes me stronger,
every tear in my soul makes me stronger,

you always put me back together

When I first became aware of the importance of you, I was an adult who had been put through so much trauma that I mourned the loss of your innocence. I sat in my grieving with you for much longer than I should have. I pretended I was fine. I pretended we were fine. We were not fine. Not fine in any way! I pretended that the pain that would encompass most of your childhood and young adulthood just was not that bad. In realty, it was not great! In reality it was abusive and toxic! I did not want to face the layers of traumas. The pain was just too intense! I just couldn’t stand seeing how much you had been hurt until I faced those layers of pain as an adult. I put off facing the layers of pain for far too long. Then when I began to face it, I got accused for many years of just not letting go of my past. I would get yelled at by my mother for just not letting it go! The truth was she did not want to face what had happened to me either. Then she would have to do some inner work. That is her journey. For me, the truth was that I had to chip away layer after layer in order to free and heal myself from the confines of my childhood. I spent eight years actively healing the traumas that had happened from the time I was nine years old until I was thirty-six when I had blown up my abusive marriage with divorce! The explosion of my marriage was my way of setting myself free from all of the abusive narratives I refused to accept any longer! Oh how I am proud of myself for that disruption to my timeline! I did not want to repeat the patterns that had led me to the fact I had survived many layers of abuse as a child and as an adult because I thought that was my fate! Oh how I want to go back and hug the thirty-six year old version of myself. I will get there, but first I had to love on the little girl who I look at each day in a Polaroid photo that feels as the perfect reminder of how precious time can be when we look backwards or forwards. Looking at that little girl in that Polaroid photo held my motivation to stay on my journey of insisting that I had to heal as my guiding force. I also needed to look at this photo to Remind me that I refused for my children to have to survive the unhealed parts of their mother on their own journey from childhood through adulthood. I demanded better for them! I demand better for myself!

Now, I work a little harder every day to heal what had been done to you. What had been done to us. I keep a picture of you at the age of eight at my desk to remind myself every single day that, you are loved. I tell the younger version of myself each day, “I love you.” I actively have changed the way I look at myself as an adult, because I have learned to love the younger version of myself. Now, I count the blessings that helped me to survive the abusive nature of my childhood. I focus on the people who helped me to be a better version of myself. I focus on the people who loved me when I could not love myself. They saw that I was more than the circumstances of my childhood which would bleed into my young adulthood. I look at that picture of myself at eight years every single day to remind me that I am still amazing with a world ahead of me! I no longer grieve the loss of her. I embrace her with all the good and all the bad! I am not defined nor am I broken, but all those experiences I have navigated through.Now, I look at the possibilities ahead of me! Those experiences made an impact that I carry each day as a reminder of how far we have come. My younger self and who I am now match one another. I look at how far we have healed and some of the work I still have to do on my path to further my healing. This daily reminder interlaced within one Polaroid photo has helped me to reignite the pain that I had stuffed down for so long. I had to look back and face the pain in order to make sense out of it, so I could move forward and not inflict that pain onto anyone else. I needed to learn to love myself! I needed to learn to empower myself!

Looking back is not always a bad thing. It just is a way if used with a healing intention a way to simply heal what had been hurt with myself. I cannot speak for anyone else’s journey, but for my own. I love that vivacious energy I had as a child! Those endless imaginative ways I saw the possibilities of world was inspiring to others, but most of all to the older version of myself! I just wouldn’t realize it until I became an adult and faced it. I have done the work. I have looked at each nook and cranny of my past. All I see now is a girl who needs more hugs, more reassurances that she on a better path that I can now give to myself. I no longer look outside of myself to know I am lovable! I tell myself every single day that I am worthy of love! So, as I look at the photo of the younger version of myself as I write this I am reminded that, I love how beautiful you looked in your sun dress and that you had a smile that you see in your son! I love that your eyes sparkle like your daughter! I simply love that you are apart of me! As I look at that Polaroid photo I see your energy was not taken advantage of then and you had endless ways to show off your silliness! I needed the daily reminder that as an adult now, I am amazed with you and how you hard you held the innocence of all that encompasses you! I hold that so close to my heart for us. Every day I look at that picture where you are smiling and full of joy and I see my kids! I see the love and security I poured into them so they did not have to suffer the way you would a few years after that photo was taken. Sarah Jayne, I love you with all of my heart!