Withering Hope

by Layla Hagen

"If you feared you might never see the woman you love again, would you try to forget her in someone else's arms?"

Someone like her should never, ever, know pain.

My peace carries her smell and sounds like her voice. It feels like her touch.

"Not someone. You. You make the memories bearable, the present better.

Tristan slipped into my soul the way mist travels in the forest after the rain: unseen, unstoppable, and ubiquitous.

"I'm not a star," I whisper. "I'm a satellite rotating around you. You're the star. I need your light to shine."

In sharing his pain, he took mine away.

Without the man who taught me what it feels like to be whole, I become a shadow myself.

Love has an effect few other things have: to empower you with happiness, and at the same time, strip you of all power, making you a prisoner of fear.

When you are healthy you think you have all eternity to say what matters. When you're sick you learn how to live every moment, and how to make every moment matter.

Death has its beauty. It makes you see the eternity in every second; it makes you see every moment’s perfection instead of searching an eternity for the perfect moment.

without darkness, you can never truly appreciate the light.