“When you spend so long trapped in darkness, you find that the darkness begins to stare back.” -Sarah J Maas

I know I can’t save everyone, and I know that it’s not my job.

Yet, when a friend comes to you full of sad thoughts, a role kind of starts to form, one I never realized that I took on. I’ve come to sadly see in my position, in the trading of sad thoughts for positive ones, that an imprint of our scars, of our sadness still lingers, even after I’ve done my part. Sadness is a bittersweet emotion because although it allows us to feel, to keep us human, it can also turn us into our own monsters. It can turn the mind into a blade, sharpening the steeled end we never realized that was pointed at ourselves.

I know what it’s like to fall into that kind of darkness, but I also know how liberating it is when you rise from it.

When you ignore the voices that whisper,

"You are nothing,

You are broken,

You are ruined,

You will fail,

You never deserved love."

I knew a girl once who listened to those voices. She had a light in her that no one could see, but could always feel. She was full of dreams and star-crossed wishes. She was a dreamer who fell in love with her nightmares, but most importantly, she was my friend.

We all have our hard days to contend with, our demons to battle and scars to heal. Yet, I never saw the darkness that lived in her because she never showed it. I never knew what monsters haunted her thoughts, or how their claws lazily caressed the fragile threads of her mind.

I never saw it coming when all the threads snapped.

She was the type of girl that willed to no one, but the world and everyone in it, willed to her. Maybe it was love that broke her, or maybe all her dark thoughts finally came to the surface, and the hissing of her demons had silenced all the light that breathed and thrived in her.

It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, and that was to just watch her fall.

I remember the bruises that she hid under sweaters during the summer, and the way she silently limped whenever she walked out her front door. She used to tell me that she was fine, that everything was okay. Yet, there were days when she would look at a bottle of pills for a moment too long, or got lost in the quiet when looking out a window instead of watching our favorite movie.

Then there came a day, when my phone rang with a call I never wanted to answer.

I ran to the hospital down our block, afraid that I was too late. While the nurse led me to her room, all her words were just bundled pieces of background noise. However, one word echoed in my mind like a ghostly chant,

Overdose.

When I reached her room, she looked like a living ghost.

Her hazel eyes fluttered open, and she looked at me with eyes so lost, it's like she never knew light. She mouthed brokenly,

"Come."

I walked over to her bed and laid down next to her, just like when we were kids.

She whispered what her voices said,

"I am nothing.

I am broken.

I am ruined.

I have fallen.

I have failed.

I will never be loved.

I am gone."

Tears streamed down both our cheeks as I shook my head and held her hand.

I silently smiled at her and said,

"You are everything.

You are unbreakable.

You are beautiful.

You have won.

You rose from your fall.

You are loved.

You are still here because you're a survivor.

And you were never gone silly, just got a little lost in the dark."

She hugged me as I told her again and again that her voices were wrong, and it took me awhile to realize that those voices belonged to her boyfriend and herself. Yet, over the years, her scars healed and her family and I stayed with her every step of the way. Her voices are merely echoes in the void she closed up, and I didn't lose her to the dark.

I know what the dark can do, and I see what it has done to the ones we’ve known and loved. We all have monsters in us that we can’t shake off, that we can’t fight and that we sometimes let win and we feel like the world is full of them. Yet, I know what the rise after the fall feels like; like your ashes have been brushed away from the soots of your sadness, like the dark fire in you has finally burned out, and a gold flame has taken it’s place.

It’s okay to be not okay sometimes.

We all can’t be perfect.

We can’t put up our shields all the time.

However, we have the light in us to survive the dark.

We have the strength to fight off our monsters.

We have the voice to silence our demons.

We have the will to go on against all the odds.

We are beautiful in the same way roses are, and can grow past our thorns.

Tomorrow is always a chance for a better day, and all our yesterdays are just extra weights against today. No one is beyond saving, everyone is worth something. As long as we remember that there is always a light in the dark, we will never be lost for long.