I am not your friend. I'm not your lover. I'm not your family.

Dear Mr. Lacey 

But not really. this isn't for you. It's for me, and the people that have been put through torture before. Women and men across the world that are put in a powerless place by people like you. People with fabricated power, a pretty voice, and our attention. 

I've been fighting off this cloud all day -- since the news broke. 

Trying to make sense of the million little pieces my heart has been broken into because of your grotesque actions. My heart is broken, not for you and our time together. But for Nicole, and what I can only assume is a laundry list of silence names you've left behind. 

It's a bold assumption, but broken men that feel a power, rarely ever use it only once. So I'll take my bets that this wonderful human being you've turned into a victim is not the only life you've darkened. 

You see, it's ironic ... almost ... that an artist with your talent, and track-record for "saving" us, would do the complete opposite in real life. 

We -- the fans -- would blindly believe that you found an outlet for that darkness in your music. That you kept it caged there. That we all could connect on the things some of us hesitate to say or feel, because you had the guts to spit them out. But now we know that you also have the lack of soul to DO such horrendous things, and not solely speak of the dark, but birth it. 

Like many, you changed my life. Brand New means the world to me. It "saved" me, for a lack of a better term. I just spoke highly of you mere days ago to a friend, as I regaled them about my absolute favorite concert experience ever. A concert I can never undo. A moment in my life that I HAD claimed was among the greatest. 

Now, I don't know that I could loathe you more. 

For giving me hope. For giving me safety. For telling me that hurt it okay. 

All the while, stripping that from other human beings. 

You used to complain that we (the fans) thought we were too close to you. That you "weren't our friend", and it couldn't be more accurate. 

I hope you fight your demons off enough to sincerely be accountable for your disgusting actions. I hope you never forgive yourself. I hope the world never forgives you. But knowing the pain you've caused, I do hope that your victims can find it in themselves to forgive you, because they do not deserve to live wearing this lead-coat their entire lives... and it's a futile hope, because they never will forgive... and boy do you not deserve it.

You've been outed as the burden we all thought you dissolved in us. 

Never again, your champion, 

- wf.