I choose to smile

Trigger warning: Depression, suicide.

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Some days are hard.

Some days when I wake I cry to dream again.

Some days make me want

to bury myself in the comfort of sadness.

All I can see is dreary grey.

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I thought I was past it, but it

hovers on the edge of my mind.

That final comfort. That assured comfort.

The promise that I can let go of everything.

That I can trust in the void

to be a better place than this.

Scars beg to be reopened.

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The little things get to me; the stumbles and missteps

of daily life, which wrap around Despair

and armour her to fight me.

Nothing can seem to go right;

why fight at all?

Give in, they whisper,

the minds of my pains,

Give in. Let go.

You don't need to suffer us anymore.

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And then I watched the stars come out.

Tiny pinpricks of life and light, they bloomed

into the bleeding darkness

of the evening sky.

I hear the faintest sigh:

There is so much to live for.

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The cool wind on a hot summer eve

that sends chills of pleasure

down my spine.

Sweet music, from instruments

and the hearts of my friends.

Every sunset: a burst of all the colours

I thought I had lost.

The pattering of rain on my roof,

a hummed lullaby to ease me to sleep,

and the earthy scents of the world after.

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Books, webtoons, poems, films,

that allow me to enter a better place

when this one is too much.

They allow me to dream and imagine impossibilities,

Warm me better than the sun, and make me believe

that somewhere in this universe,

there's something good and pure and beautiful,

filling me with a powerful longing I can't ignore.

They make me want to live.

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The breath of life, I see everywhere;

in the waving grass, the loving trees,

the singing birds and the humming bees;

the love of those I've known and lost,

the hottest sunshine, the coldest frost;

the breaking clouds and the dawn of spring,

the gentle moon and the light she brings.

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My eyes were tinted by the bleakest grey,

But I remember the

vibrant greens, reds, yellows, blues,

and I paint the grey with my own colours,

filling the canvas with what I choose to see.

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I sought the pain because it's what I know.

I'm afraid to let myself live, to stand up

and risk falling again. But I see beauty,

around and inside me. 

I will believe the voice that whispers of life.

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Last night I watched the stars come out,

one by one,

And I choose to smile.