Life is this beautiful struggle when you look from the outside in but where I'm standing I can't see the beautiful giving it's speech upon a vast podium because there's this large man in front of me. Yet he's not a man. He's just a memory of this teenage boy who hurt me when I was even old enough to spell rape correctly. So I get up my nerve and I push him behind me because all I want is to hear the optimistic words spewing from the hope that is trying to tell me life is a beautiful struggle. But then I'm blocked again and this time it's by a girl and she's not even fully blocking my brow but her presence makes me shrink like I'm back in that closet where she shoved me and told me to stay quiet. And once again I am faced with a struggle that is only chaotic and I look around for the help I know is there for me but I can't push away my pride like I can push her so that's what I do. And now I am closer to the goal that I can only dream of but still there's got to be something or someone blocking my way and it's this man who I've known but haven't for my entire life. And this time I don't think I can get the courage to break through the boundaries that he's set with his drunken words and hateful accusations but I see their faces in the crowd. I see the ones I trust and I see the message of hope filling them to the brim and I want to be with them so badly that I get down on all fours and I crawl through the crowd of my judgments looking only to where I want to go. I leave behind the people who hurt me in ways I can't describe, I leave behind the things my head tells me when I'm alone, I leave behind the ways I've hurt myself, and I crawl and crawl until I've finally reached the stage. I look up to see her looking down at me and she's there and she's still spurting words like blossoms that bloom into my chest as I lift myself up and reach to give her my hand because the only way I can get through this life is to see it as a beautiful struggle instead of a deadly one.
