Jess Krista Merighi

The scariest part of self-injury is that of the 300+ million people in this country, nearly two million engage in the behavior in some form and to some degree, and yet hardly anyone talks about it.

I saw all the Hallmark commercials for Mother’s Day, actors with their perfectly manicured nails and pale pink carnations, and I wondered what that felt like, like I was on the outside of an emotion, looking in on something that I couldn’t relate to.

Sex is not the deciding factor in morality or human compassion. By sleeping with x amount of men, it does not make me less efficient in my career or unequipped to read my niece a bedtime story.

I have never held hands that were equally my own and not, at the exact same time. It is this lack of understanding that makes me want to say thank you.

Give your heart simply because it’s the most wonderfully reckless thing you can do, because love at its core is vulnerability and vulnerability is beautiful.

This is a love letter to the words that calloused our broken hands when we thought we were already crawling, and mended our broken hearts when we thought they couldn’t break anymore.

I will know love in my own way. I will be content with my own happily childless path.

It’s okay to shut yourself and be messy if only for a day. It’s okay to not try and make yourself feel better because you just need to let it all out.



There was just me, and it was peaceful. For the first time in a long time, I was completely alone and it felt incredibly relaxing.

You would look more feminine if you grew it out.


Here’s the thing — if the only way to get to the road back home is a one lane bridge that’s closed, it’s going to get worse, and it does.

Is there not a place on this planet where I can go just be? If Chicago is just as uneasy as Boston, where do I belong?


It’s the skipped beat in my heart, my dragging feet on my way to work. It’s the deep understanding that few other people could ever love me as selflessly and as unconditionally as he did.

I remember taking the pen and notebook from that woman outside the courtroom, flipping to a clean page in the book, and writing, JESSICA IS SAD in big, bold, uncoordinated letters. 

“My sister is going to be a good writer someday! Look at how nice her lines are!”

One thing this friend said that really struck me was, “Well it’s the gangs. If they gangs keep killing each other, then there will eventually be none left.”