I sleep with your books under my pillow, hoping to absorb the spirit of their brilliance into my brain. I carry your pages around just under my skin; when I daydream, I like to imagine that I can peer through my milky, transparent skin and see the letters form the words form the sentences form the quotes that I draw my most piercing inspiration from. I envy you and your art, I envy you and your release, I envy your voice that has imparted itself in these words and is now immortally speaking to and touching people that don't even know you.

They may laugh, they may judge, and even worse, they may dismiss, but someday they may realize that they have physically been touched by you and they never knew, never knew who...what you were. Now they do. Now they most certainly do.

That envy - equal parts respect and awe, admiration and recognition - that your voice in my head creates in my heart is what make me so determined to do what I can that I can physically taste it...it's metallic, tastes like blood and it's starting now to overpower the flavor of my food. It is the single thing that drives me and makes me want to fight, to love and to laugh every single minute that I can because I know, through it all, that these things are what will give me my own voice to put in people's heads, so that they can never again underestimate who I am.