Refraction

I have written about heartache.

I have written about the stain of grief, how it does not lift, does not lighten, only seeps into the fabric of everything you thought untouched.

I have written about the weight of silence, how it can sit upon your chest until breathing is something you have to remember to do.

I have written about rage, hot and sharp, teeth against bone. And I have written about the days when there is no rage at all, only the dull ache of existing, the kind of emptiness that is not dramatic, not poetic, just there.

And I wrote. Because that is what I knew how to do. Because the words had to go somewhere, or they would consume me whole.

So I whispered them into the void.

And for a long time, the void did not answer.

But then, one day, a whisper came back.

"This is beautiful." "This moved me." "This mattered."

And I did not know what to do with that.

Because pain had never felt beautiful to me. Because my words were not art. They were not poetry. They were survival.

But still, I wrote. And the whispers grew louder.

"This made me feel seen." "This is exactly what I needed." "Thank you."

And something shifted.

At first, it was so small I almost missed it.

I did not stop writing about sorrow. I did not stop bleeding onto the page.

But the words, they were changing.

Or maybe it wasn’t the words at all. Maybe it was me.

And then, one morning.

The most imperceptible of changes.

A message. A comment. A sentence so small, so gentle, that I almost scrolled past it.

Not this is beautiful. Not this moved me.

But

"You are beautiful."

And I read it twice. Three times. Because I did not understand. Because I had never thought to put my name in the same sentence as beauty.

I had spent so long writing away the darkness, I had not thought to look for the light.

And yet, there it was.

But I have not only written.

I have read.

Each day, I have read the words of others. Words dripping with fear, with loss, with anger, with discontent Words so achingly raw they could not help but be birthed by love.

And how strange, I have learned That such compassion, such honesty, such visceral truth Can only come from beauty.

Make no mistake. I have seen it now. Raw, unflinching honesty is a beauty all its own.

And that beauty is you.

The ones who have written into the dark, Who have let their pain spill onto pages, onto screens, onto whispers sent into the void. The ones who have been afraid and still spoken.

I have read your words.

And they have been beautiful. And they have mattered.

And so have you.

The staggering, heartbreaking, breathtaking truth that had been waiting in front of me all along.

We are the last to see our own light, a lantern glowing in someone else’s hands.

And yet, it is there.

It is there in the way we break and still get back up. In the way we grieve and still love. In the way we rage and still hope.

It is in the way we press trembling fingers to the keys, to the page, to our own reflection And write our way back home.

It is in the way we whisper into the dark, And in the way, one day The dark whispers back.

Not because you have not known pain. Not because you have not felt loss. Not because you have never been broken.

But because you have.

And you are still here.

And I am emotional today. I am overwhelmed. I am gracious. I am awed.

And I am thankful.

For the words. For the ache. For the whispers that return.

For the beauty we do not always see in ourselves Until the void, one day, whispers it back.

(Fade to black.)