Where are our heroes? Where are our role models? Why are we leaving youth behind and laughing at the ones who are still there? Why not help each other out instead? with a little grace. with a little compassion. Love for all and everyone around because we’re all stumbling or succeeding back and forth, every day, and I want more community. I want helpers and guidance. Am I helping someone? I don’t know, but since the tender age of eighteen I have written down my stories and experiences of love and loss and youth, just so these stories can exist in the world. For someone out there to find and read and feel a voice in my words saying, “I’ve been there, I’ve done this, you can too: come, follow me.” Have you ever lost something by teaching what you know, and learning what you don’t know? Have you ever lost something by helping someone in need, or letting someone help you while in need? Have you lost something by loving? In comparison, how much have you lost by meeting someone with ignorance and hate? Love. I will choose love. And I’m scared and shy, of everyone and everything, to make a fool of myself; to be laughed at; to not be what people would like me to be. But I will choose love because that’s the sort of person I want to be.