From Darkness to Dawn

A Poem of Rising Again

Sometimes the world forgets how much pain a single heart can carry. If you’re in the thick of it, keep reading—this is where the turning begins.

The Way Back Into Light

It started with the silence,

not the gentle kind

but the type that eats your voice,

leaves your chest echoing

with things no one could hear.

There were nights that didn’t end,

days that never really began,

grief folding time

like a damp page,

soft and heavy with what you lost.

The mirror stopped knowing you.

Your name sounded strange in your mouth.

You clung to routines

just to prove you still existed,

even when the world felt like it didn’t care.

But pain, for all its weight,

is not where the story ends.

There was a flicker—

so small, you nearly missed it.

A breath that didn’t hurt.

A laugh, low and unexpected.

A moment when the light

threaded through the curtain cracks

and touched your skin like it remembered you.

You stood, one morning,

not because you had the strength

but because your soul whispered: try again.

So you did.

In little ways.

By holding eye contact.

By stepping outside.

By letting yourself imagine

something better

than just surviving.

The road back wasn’t straight.

You cried in between smiles.

You stumbled through your own healing.

But the roots were growing,

quiet and steady beneath you.

And now—look at you.

Not perfect,

not untouched,

but radiant in your resilience.

You’ve learned to carry joy

alongside sorrow.

To let light in

without demanding

the darkness disappear first.

This is what rising looks like.

This is what becoming whole feels like.

You made it through the night.

And even the stars

are proud of you.

“I’ve been through 18 levels of hell—all in my head. I don’t know if heaven is real, but this peace is.”

—Vanessa Liu