Written by Ifrah Reyal of Richard Montgomery High School
When the moon comes out and settles high in the sky, so do our demons. They can come in any shape or form, they can torment us daily. For her, the demons are her thoughts, her insecurities. Under the scrutiny of the soft moon glow, she can see everything she hates about herself. She can see the hollows of her cheekbones, the red of her cheeks and the trail of dried tears. She can see it all—she can see the things about her she desperately wants to disappear.
She can feel her heart and her mind working tirelessly against her, making her feel weaker and weaker with every passing moment, because what good is a person who cannot even fathom enough love for themselves? What good is someone who is so unlovable that she can’t even find love for herself?
But as the moon sinks and the sun starts to rise, she finds that maybe, even though she might cry in the night and her tears might mark her, maybe she is stronger than she thinks. She finds that although tears run down her cheeks and her breath is ragged, maybe her weakness is also her strength. She finds that maybe, just maybe, her inability to love herself comes from her ability to love others too much.
Maybe the love she has for others is too severe to understand, or maybe the love she has for others is too complex to want, but the love that she holds for others might take away from her love for herself. Even though she might give parts of her heart away to other people, that might make her stronger, because she is able to empathize and help other people the way she wants to help herself.
Maybe her weaknesses, the ones that took over her body in the night, become something greater in the day. Maybe her weaknesses might mark her for something else. Maybe her weaknesses might become part of who she is, and she doesn’t hate it.
And when the sun finally rises, and the soft sun rays play across her skin, she can finally look at herself and not look away. Because when she looks at herself, she no longer finds the hollows of her cheekbones, or the red of her cheeks and her dried tears, but instead she finds her soft skin, damp with tears, and her unique bone structure, supporting the brain behind it. She finds that although she has her weaknesses, she also has her strengths.
She finds her worth, and she finds love for herself, and that might be the best gift of all.
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