Crow and Flame

What do you do when your heart aches?

Not the kind of ache that a cup of coffee and a good night’s sleep can fix.

I mean the deep kind.

The kind that settles beneath your ribs and makes breathing feel like work.

The kind that follows you through the day and waits until the room is quiet to remind you that it is still there.

What do you do when you feel alone?

When there are people around you, but somehow you still feel like you are standing in the middle of an empty field, calling out and hearing nothing answer back?

What do you do when hope feels like a language you’ve forgotten?

When you start wondering if there is any point to trying anymore.

If any of it matters.

If you matter.

Sometimes the hardest part isn’t the pain itself.

It’s the things we begin whispering to ourselves because we are hurting.

I wish I were better.

I wish I were stronger.

I wish I were easier to love.

I wish I were what you need.

Those thoughts can become crows in the dark, circling overhead.

And when you are exhausted enough, you start believing every word they carry.

But listen to me, little crow.

Pain is not proof that you are failing.

Loneliness is not proof that you are unwanted.

Being tired does not mean you are weak.

And needing someone does not make you a burden.

Sometimes surviving the night looks very small.

It looks like crying until you finally fall asleep.

It looks like putting one foot on the floor in the morning when you desperately want to stay beneath the blankets.

It looks like drinking some water.

Taking a shower.

Stepping outside.

Holding something warm in your hands.

Writing down the things you cannot say aloud.

Texting someone and simply saying, I’m having a hard night. Can you stay with me for a little while?

Sometimes healing doesn’t look like becoming stronger.

Sometimes it looks like refusing to abandon yourself while you are hurting.

There will be nights when you don’t believe tomorrow will feel different.

You don’t have to believe it yet.

Let tomorrow carry that belief for you.

You only have to make it through tonight.

And if tonight is too heavy to carry alone, please reach for another human being. A friend. A family member. A therapist. A crisis line. Anyone who can sit beside you in the darkness until you can see a little light again.

You were never meant to carry the whole sky by yourself.

And you do not have to become someone else’s idea of perfect to deserve love.

You don’t have to be stronger.

You don’t have to be better.

You don’t have to become what someone else needs.

You are allowed to be the person who is here.

The person who hurts.

The person who cries.

The person who is still trying.

The little crow who made it through another night.

Sometimes that is enough.

Sometimes that is everything.

So if your heart aches tonight, put your hand over it.

Feel it beating.

Still here.

Still yours.

Still carrying you.

Stay.

Let the darkness pass through you without convincing you that you belong to it.

Morning has a way of finding even the birds who have forgotten how to fly.