Everything feels scarier at night.
Not because I have refused to outgrow the childish fear of the dark,
but because there is a silence that allows my innermost secrets to shine so bright.

Every thought, fear, worry, self-hate and disgust
shines so bright in the dark silence of the night,
where there are no distractions,
just you and the voices that rest in the depths of your soul.

Numerous nights with numerous battles,
counting the moments with each tick of the clock,
wondering what the dawn will bring.

Some nights are ravaged with thoughts of going with the dark,
but hoping for the best.
That perhaps somewhere in the new light, a miracle would happen.
That the new day would bring a sense of peace.

Real peace.

Not the falsehood of one dressed as distraction and busyness.
Not the kind that disappears the moment the room becomes quiet again.
Not the kind that needs noise, people, work or exhaustion
to keep the thoughts away.
Not the kind that is masked by loudness and restlessness.

But peace that sits beside you even when there is nothing else there.
Peace that does not ask you to run from yourself.
Peace that lets you exist without having to constantly negotiate
with the parts of you that wish you were someone else,
or that you did not exist.

And maybe that is why I keep waiting for morning.

Because there is that semblance of hope.

Hope that it will finally be okay.
Hope that the “words of affirmation” will finally work.
Hope that the power of positive thinking will finally take root.
Hope that maybe, just maybe, there is something worth fighting for.
That all that holding on was indeed not for nothing.

That perhaps there are things ahead
I cannot imagine from where I am standing now.

A version of life that has not introduced itself to me yet.
A laugh I have not laughed.
A place I have not been.
A person I have not met.
A day I have not lived that may make me grateful
I stayed long enough to see it.

Because perhaps that is the cruelty of night.

It asks you to make permanent decisions from temporary darkness.
It convinces you that because you cannot see the road ahead,
there is no road at all.

It tells you that it never ends,
that your tears and pain are a lifetime contract
with an end only at your last breath.

That because today hurt, tomorrow most certainly will hurt too.
That because peace has not found you yet, it never will.
And maybe you are not deserving of it.
That it was never written into the plans of your life from conception.

But then morning comes.

Because surely, morning will always come.
Because I was assured that weeping may endure for the night,
but joy comes in the morning.

So I wait for that morning.
My morning.
The morning that would bring my joy.

And I wonder what it will look like.

Will I recognise it when it finally arrives?
Will it come loudly, with every prayer answered
and every broken thing restored?

Or will it come quietly?

In a day when breathing does not feel quite so heavy.
In a night when sleep comes before the thoughts do.
In the moment I realise I have gone an entire afternoon
without wishing I were somewhere else,
someone else,
anything else,
or even nothing at all.

Maybe my morning will not be one grand arrival.
Maybe it will come in pieces.

A little peace here.
A little laughter there.
A little less hatred for the person in the mirror.
A little more willingness to believe
that perhaps I am allowed to take up space in this world too.

Maybe joy does not always burst through the door.
Maybe sometimes it slips quietly beneath it.

Maybe it sits unnoticed in ordinary things
until one day you look around
and realise the darkness does not live everywhere anymore.

So until then,
I will keep holding on through the night for dawn.
I will keep listening for the first sounds of morning.
I will keep watching for the faintest change in the sky.

I will keep reminding myself that the night has lied to me before.
That it has called itself forever and still ended.
That it has promised me there was nothing on the other side.

And yet, again and again,
I have lived long enough to watch the sun prove it wrong,
even just for a bit,
in glimpses
and in the testimonies of others.

So tonight, if hope is all I have,
then hope will have to be enough.

Even if it is small.
Even if it trembles.
Even if all it can manage is one more hour.

Because perhaps somewhere beyond this darkness,
joy is learning my name.

Perhaps peace is already on its way.
Perhaps there is a life ahead of me
that one day I will be glad I stayed to meet.

And until I know, I will wait.

For the light.
For the joy.
For my morning.

Because there is still morning.

There is always morning.

STAY SHINING