Sometimes it might feel like the light someone else is giving off is the only one in your absolute darkness. Sometimes when it’s late at night, only the shape of her lips stops you from drowning. Sometimes it seems like his eyes are the only places you’re freed from anxiety. I know what it’s like having sunflower people love you. I know the constant internal battle between believing you don’t deserve someone as wonderful as they are and the desire to become the kind of person that would make them proud. I know that you’ll push them away some days and be overly clingy the next. I know that they’ll seem like the only window in a room full of mirrors, but you will be the one to save yourself. I know it seems impossible, but the truth is, you won’t be with her the night you want to die. You won’t be in his arms. You’ll be alone again. And even if they are the reason your hands stop themselves from picking up a blade: it is your mind making that decision. You are the one winning that battle, even if it’s done for them. You are the one putting love before the darkness, you are the one forcing back the blackness - you might use their smile to do it, but it is only by the force of your own effort that it works. See, having someone who grounds you might make you think you’ve gained the strength to go on, but that strength has always been tarnishing away inside of you. They just polished it off. See, we get used to it being so black in here that at the first sign of something bright we shield our eyes and think maybe we could spend forever just breaking our bodies against this one beautiful something that has finally felt like happiness again - but if we just looked down, we’d see that by coming in contact with love, you can’t help but light up. You burn too. You burn just as warm, even if you can’t feel it because you’re so used to the cold. If you keep yourself healthy for the sake of another human being, aren’t you committing an act of love outstanding? You heard the voices tell you “they’ll get over it,” and you spat in the face of your darkness. You said, “I’m not going to give them something to get over, I love them too much to hurt them forever.” Yours was the fire. Yours was the heart. Yours was the guiding star. Because the truth is: when you say “he saved my life,” what you mean is “I saved myself and he helped show me how.” There is nothing wrong with needing help from time to time, with needing someone to talk to, with needing someone to find the parts of you that went numb. It’s very easy to get lost in this darkness, trust me, I know. There is nothing wrong with taking guidance from gentle love. But give yourself the credit, dear. It was your war, and you won.