The Time You Gave Up

There is a time

In your life where you’ll believe anything that you're told.

Like, you know when you were a kid

And you were told about the bogey monster?

Or how about the time when we were told

That the friend we have, no one else sees?

All those little things-

They never affected you.

But,

Now as you grow up

You start to see

That the more harsh the words get,

And the more you start to fall into the stereotypes

People start looking at what’s on the outside

Instead of what could be

On the inside.

You begin to learn that you don’t

“Fit in”

With the “perfect people”

around us.

You change your appearance

So that you're in the “clique”

But,

You liked you better the way you were before,

And you realize that

You’ll probably never be able to be the same person again.

You become uncomfortable

In your own skin,

So you try to take it off.

After you realize that

You’re completely numb from the pain,

The only color you’ll ever want to see again

Will be the red

That filled your eyes that day.

Whatever you were faking before,

Comes all out.

You’re no longer

That person you were pretending to be.

You’re someone else.

Someone who hides away.

Isolates.

Someone who doesn’t need love.

Doesn’t need the hate.

The friends.

Those once red lines

Start to stop numbing the pain,

So you try something new.

This time,

The last thing you remember

Is being rushed to the hospital at one in the morning.

Great!

The therapy you think you don’t need,

So you skip the meetings.

The depression grows.

The night at the hospital

Turns into a month at the psych-ward.

You think no one’s there for you,

That no one cares.

But,

What you don’t realize

Is that you always had people there.

You just pushed them away.

You feel like you’ll never find another that

won’t run from your past.

Years after this feeling,

You don’t trust anyone.

You feel like everyone’s out to get you-

That no matter where you go

You’ll be targeted.

You find this one person, though

They come along

And at first,

You don’t believe

That that ONE person can do anything,

ANYTHING!
That could change

How you feel-

Who you’ve come to be.

But the second

They say the words

“I love you”,

Everything-

All the pain,

Misery,

Hatred,

All the problems,

All your past-

All of it fades away.

You realize you lost the fight

To the fight

That you thought you would never win.

Because that ONE person didn’t run-

Didn’t run from your past,

From your scars,

From the darkness you shaded over yourself.

That ONE person

Made you feel like the only person in the world-

Like you mattered,

Like someone cared.

You feel individually beautiful

And all the beauty in life that

You forgot to look at,

Suddenly becomes visible to you.

It all was right there

In  front of your eyes.

You realize

That you were wrong all along.

The help-

You needed it.

The friends-

You needed them.

It just took this one loving, courageous soul

To show it to you.

Everything’s perfect.

So where do you go from perfect?

Tell your story.

Tell them that everything bad you hear

Is wrong!

What they think of you doesn’t matter.

It shouldn’t matter.

The only thing that matters

Is what YOU think of yourself.

Because it will all work out in the end.

The bullies will shrink.

The haters will stop.

The love will grow.

The hope will return.

And tell them to think.

Think before doing something stupid.

Because believe ME,

The scars will haunt you

Forever.

They aren’t what you are.

They aren’t who you are.

But they were what WAS.

They tell your story.

The story that will inspire many.

The story that shows your beauty.

The story that shows that the fight

Is NEVER over-

That the fight

Will NEVER be over.

But,

The fight is a part of your story.

And your story won’t ever end.

Because you

Are part of a story

That never ends.

You are beautiful.

You are an individual.

You are wonderful.

You are you,

And you are perfect.

And don’t you ever,

EVER!

Forget that.