Do you know how people always say that time heals all wounds, but they forgot to mention the scars time wound leave behind? The scars that reminded us daily, that we weren't good enough. The same scars we gave ourselves in acts of desperation to feel something, and pain was the only something we could think of to try and clear the paralyzing numbness that flooded our minds like angry oceans. So as sad songs played on the radio, we took stolen scissors from our parents, staining them red like roses in the wintertime with the lost red rivers that hide under our skin. And we hid these scars with fake smiles and band-aids, and if anyone noticed, we blamed them on a cat that didn't exist. See, beneath all of these layers of sugar, spice, and silence, we're fighting this constant battle. The choice of life or death. The decision of whether we will wake up in our beds, or a hospital's. Because our fragile hearts have been captured by the cruel hands of depression and beaten by the forever-changing tidal wave of insecurity. We have been silenced by thoughts and our loved ones, telling us that it's normal or we're overreacting. But we're not. We are trapped in the darkness of our minds, and when people say, "you need the cracks to let the light shine through", they don't realize that this only is true if the so-called "broken person" is standing in this fabled light of hope, and we're not. You see, we're drowning in a sea of tears that we have created out of all of the late nights you've left us with. But you can't see this. You can't see our pain or our scars, and if you do, you brush them off as nothing to be worried about. Our cry for help come to you as a muted whisper, shoved to the back of your mind like an unimportant detail from a dream you have years ago; forgotten.

Now, one thing I know for sure is that everyone has their own way of coping with this numbness. Some good, some bad, but all together they help us survive the long nights and hard days. My way is writing. I pour my broken heart and bleeding soul onto paper, and it makes a beautiful mess. It's like a complicated dance, and with each passing day, it gets harder and harder. Writing is just my way of keeping time to the unsteady rhythm of my heartbeat. My life is just one big tightrope act, and I fear if tilt the wrong way or put my foot in the wrong spot, I will end up falling; face-first into this ocean of blood and tears. The ocean that I have created out of all the late and lonely nights I've spent, crying. Visions of blood-stained razors flood my mind deep into the night. I have fought this fight a thousand times. These scars are trophies of my victories and loses. I am living proof that I have fought these battles and won. Because this is my dance, and this is my pain.