Stay

This poem is not going to pretend it knows what you're feeling. It doesn't. But it knows you're still reading, which means you're still here, which means the part of you that wants to stay is still louder than the part that doesn't. Listen to that part. It's small right now. It's a whisper in a room that's full of shouting. But it's there. And it's right. The darkness is lying to you. It's telling you the world is better without you in it. But the darkness doesn't know about the person who will need you next Tuesday. Or the laugh you haven't laughed yet. Or the morning— some ordinary morning— when the light will come through the window at exactly the right angle and something in you will say: oh. There it is. There's the reason. You don't have to see it now. You just have to get to that morning. Call someone. Anyone. The number is: 988. Three digits. That's all it takes to let someone else hold the weight for a minute while you catch your breath. You are not a burden. You are a person having the hardest time of their life and that is not the same thing. Stay. Not forever. Just tonight. And then tomorrow night. And then the one after that. Stack the nights. They become weeks. The weeks become the distance between you and the worst moment. And distance is the beginning of healing. Please. Stay.