Dear Brother

Dear brother,

I've done a horrible, awful, selfish thing.

I am a horrible, awful, selfish person.

I just wanted to survive. I just wanted to live. I just wanted to be happy.

Was that worth the betrayal, the abandonment, the hurt, that I've cast upon you, the person I love most?

Does it make me a bad person?

Am I a bad person?

I think I'm a bad person.

What have I done?

Dear god, what have I done?

I swore I would save you. And I will.

I swore I would help you. And I will.

I swore I would be there for you. And I will.

But right now I'm gone.

Right now I'm not saving you. I'm leaving you to suffer.

Right now I'm not helping you. I'm hurting you.

Right now I'm not there for you. I'm gone.

I've always thought self-sacrifice was a beautiful noble thing. I always thought I wanted to be the person that would give up everything for the people they love.

Apparently, I'm not that person.

I don't think I ever was.

From the age of four years old, I had to learn the hard way what it meant to survive. I had to learn that the world was cruel and unfair and that it would not spare anyone of its horrors. I had to learn how to be selfish.

And I kept learning how to be selfish. I kept doing what I had to do to survive.

I helped when I could. I saved when I could. I sacrificed when I could.

But I could not give myself up for his sake.

And is that wrong?

Is that bad?

Does that make me a horrible, awful, selfish human being?

I've been taught that it does.

I feel that it does.

What I've done isn't right.

What I've done isn't easy.

What I've done isn't selfless.

But I did it to survive.

I did it for my health, my happiness, my life.

I did it to save myself.

They tell you you have to help yourself before you can help someone else.

And I'm trying.

I didn't want to do this.

But I couldn't keep living a husk of a life, afraid and unhappy.

I didn't want to hurt you.

But I couldn't keep letting myself get hurt.

I didn't want to leave you.

But staying would mean leaving myself.

Am I a bad person?

For surviving?

I could have stayed. I would have lived.

But I would not have been alive.

What can I say to you?

That I'm sorry?

It means nothing.

But I am. I am so, so sorry.

I love you.

But love doesn't mean sacrifice.