Writers 
If today feels like a locked door,
do not mistake it for the end of the house.
Some doors take longer to open.
Some roads disappear beneath the rain
only to return beneath your feet
when morning comes.
I know—
you are tired.
Tired of praying
and hearing only the echo of your own voice.
Tired of trying
while life seems to move everyone else forward.
Tired of smiling
when your heart has forgotten how.
But listen.
You are still here.
And sometimes,
survival is the quietest form of courage.
The seed does not see the tree
while buried in darkness.
It only knows the weight of the soil,
the loneliness beneath the ground,
the waiting.
Yet something inside it
keeps reaching upward.
Be that seed.
You don’t need to have everything figured out tonight.
You don’t need to know
how the story will end.
Just stay.
Stay long enough
to see one good morning
you thought would never come.
Stay long enough
for the wound to become a scar,
for the tears to become memories,
for the thing that broke you
to become proof that you survived.
There will be days
when hope is not a fire.
Let it be a tiny ember.
Protect it.
Even if all you can whisper is,
“Maybe tomorrow.”
Sometimes
“maybe tomorrow”
is enough to carry a person through today.
And if nobody has told you lately:
You are not a failure
because your life is taking longer than you expected.
You are not forgotten
because your answer has not arrived.
You are not finished
because this chapter hurts.
The darkest page
is still only a page.
Turn it.
Slowly.
With trembling hands if you must.
There is still a morning
with your name on it.
There is still laughter
you have not heard.
There are still people
you have not met.
There are still places
your feet have not touched.
There are still versions of you
waiting somewhere in the future
to thank you for not giving up.
So breathe.
Rest if you need to.
Cry if you must.
But don’t bury your tomorrow
because today is painful.
The night may be long,
but night has never
been able to convince the sun
not to rise.
And neither will this darkness.
You are still here.
Hope is still possible.
And your story is not over.
