'Speak now au forever hold your peace', the words alisema kwa preachers at the end of wedding ceremonies all over the world, right before the vows. It's a last chance for protest, a moment that makes everyone's moyo race, and a moment I've always been strangely fascinated by. So many fantasize about bursting into a church, saying what they'd kept inside for years like in the movies. In real life, it rarely happens.

Real life is a funny thing, wewe know. In real life, saying the right thing at the right moment is beyond crucial. So crucial, in fact, that most of us start to hesitate, for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But lately what I've began to fear zaidi than that is letting the moment pass without saying anything.

I think most of us fear reaching the end of our life, and looking back regretting the moments we didn't speak up. When we didn't say 'I upendo you'. When we should've alisema 'I'm sorry'. When we didn't stand up for ourselves au someone who needed help.

These songs are made up of words I didn't say when the moment was right is front of me. These songs are open letters. Each is written with a specific person in mind, telling them what I meant to tell them in person. To the beautiful boy whose moyo I broke in December. To my first upendo who I never thought would be my first heartbreak. To my band. To a mean man I used to be afraid of. To someone who made my world very dark for a while. To a girl who aliiba something of mine. To someone I forgive for what he alisema in front of the whole world.

Words can break someone into a million pieces, but they can also put them back together. I hope wewe use yours for good, because the only words you'll regret zaidi than the ones left unsaid are the ones wewe use to intentionally hurt someone.

What wewe say might be too much for some people. Maybe it will come out all wrong and you'll stutter and you'll walk away embarrased, wincing as wewe play it all back in your head. But I think the words wewe stop yourself from saying are the ones that will haunt wewe the longest.

So say it to them. au say it to yourself in the mirror. Say it in a letter you'll never send au in a book millions might read someday. I think wewe deserve to look back on your life without a chorus of resounding voices saying 'I could've, but it's too late now.'

There is a time for silence. There is a time waiting your turn. But if wewe know how wewe feel, and wewe so clearly know what wewe need to say, you'll know it.

I don't think wewe should wait. I think wewe should speak now

Love,
Taylor

PS: To all the boys who inspired this album, wewe should've known. ;)