Dear Fire,

Ever since I was little, mommy said don't touch. So for a little while I listened, and I didn't play with fire. But everyone knows as soon as you tell a child not to do something, rest assured they will do it. I got bored of just watching and decided to put my hand in, just for a second. Real quick. No one would see. And it didn't even hurt! It was even a little bit fun. So I kept testing the limits. Doing it a little bit more every day, sure that I wouldn't get hurt. But finally one day I left my hand in too long. I forgot I'd even put it into the fire. And I got burned. But it was just a little burn, it only hurt for a few days. I left it alone for awhile, and it eventually got better. Then what do I do once it finally healed? I go straight back to playing with fire. Burning myself over and over again. Some days on purpose, and other days without even knowing it. When will I learn? Good little girls don't go playing with fire. Good little girls don't ever get burned. But for girls like me, even if it eventually heals, you'll still have the scars to remind you.

Dear Book,

You make me laugh. It's been a long time since someone made me laugh so much that I forget to be careful. I love that I can find pieces of myself scattered between your words. That wall that I've fought so hard to build keeps crumbling down, brick by brick. Other times you make me want to throw you across the room because I can't stand waiting to see how it's going to turn out. Then I can pick up a few bricks and start stacking them again. But I never get very far. I was never going to open you up in the first place because I've read stories like yours before. For some reason I always think the next one is going to be different. The next one won't leave me feeling hollow and empty. But somehow I found myself peeking into the pages before I realized it. Now I'm too enchanted. Now I can't stop reading, even if I know it might hurt at the end. So I'll continue to crawl through your dusty pages and hope that those last final words won't be blurred and drenched by tears.

Dear Push,

I am standing on the fence, teetering ever so precariously. I am waiting, and waiting, and waiting. I'm hoping you'll come and send me straight over the edge. There's only two sides of a fence. The problem is, that I want you to force my hand. I want you to choose which side I fall on. It's not fair, it's not logical, it's not right. But I still want it anyway. I can only balance for so long though. Gravity is pulling me down. Every passing second brings me closer to the edge. Sooner or later I'll come crashing down, but will you be there to catch me?

Dear Toast,

I'm waiting around for it to pop. So I'm running around in the morning, trying to get everything just right. Trying to remember everything I need to do. Trying not to focus on the toast. When it finally pop ups, it startles me. I have to stop whatever I'm doing. I can't do anything until I get the toast out. It's nagging at me constantly. Go get the toast out. I can't ignore it all the time. It's impossible. Throughout the day, I can't get toast out of my head. Even though there's a million other things to eat, all I want is toast. It's stupid really. Toast is not that healthy for you. In fact it has very little nutritional value at all. If I eat toast every day for every meal, it gives me the shakes. Not good for the blood sugar. It's too distracting. So I go off the toast. As much as I can. But every morning, toast is still there. Taunting me. Tempting me. I could tell myself to quit eating breakfast...but breakfast is my favorite part of the morning! It's the most important meal. So where does that leave me and the toast?

Dear Peanut Butter,

Let's be honest, peanut butter is my favorite. Nothing has quite been the same since it came into my life. I knew from the first time...but there were complications, so I tried to ignore it. I didn't know how much I'd like it until I got the jar open. Then there was no going back. For the first little bit, I thought I had found the perfect solution to everything. But then I started to realize that peanut butter's best quality was also its' worst. It goes well with everything. It's the condiment that perfectly compliments a zillion other things. Now everybody knows Peanut Butter is best with Jam....but that doesn't stop Peanut Butter from trying new things. And maybe Peanut Butter should try new things. After all, Jam is kind of boring...and Jam isn't all that great by itself anyways.

Dear Band-aid,

No matter how many times I get hurt, I still go out looking for more. And I always end up finding a band-aid. You cover up the scratch so I don't have to look at it, and maybe even help dull the pain. I can go on and be happy because you hide everything ugly underneath your promise to heal. But I can still feel the throb. At least for awhile. Some days I even think, you've fixed it, and I'll rip you right off and be fine. Then when I take a peek, just to see if it's gone, I find it still hurts. Back at square one. The place where I realize that the band-aid won't make it go away. You're only temporary and you can't make it better. You see, the problem with band-aids is they're no good unless you've got a scratch that needs patched. Without the scratch, it means nothing at all.

Dear Future,

You are always full of promises...shining and hopeful one moment and then dark and empty the next. Some mornings I wake up thinking you are the only one I can depend on, and other days I don't want to come out of the covers because you're so bleak. I want to sit down with you and force you to give me all the answers to all my questions, but then I realize answers would only lead to more questions and I'd be left more lost than I was before. Sometimes it's just better not knowing. But the unknown nature you carry with you makes me feel like I'm jumping out of a plane without a parachute. It's exciting for a little while, but once the ground gets close reality knocks the wind out of my lungs like a ton of bricks and I just want it all to be over. I want to stop falling. And I want a parachute. It was stupid to jump in the first place without one, but I got tired of waiting. Always waiting.