You know it can get hard sometimes.

Through the windows of the sunset, surveying the embers that tell the story of your burning sky. The fiery clouds approach you, and dissolves into a mist of wonder, sweeping through you with the breeze; your hair sweeps across the moon, ever silent as it watches you float above the universe, walking the constellations on a path of stars. Even as the past flashes by, in images distorted as if hand-painted by Picasso himself, the stars remain ever still.

You halt your steps, take a deep breath, and whisper an eternal prayer with every step you take. You can feel your heart beating in your chest, a gift from which you knew not the giver, and you see the light inside if but a shimmering presence. Hurt. Battered. Resilient. Forever. Your soul in its strength and persistence gleams a radiant glow; in truth, you never needed anybody to fill that hole, take that role in your life. You were everything you needed.

You look back at the glimmering light, brains firing as if in overdrive. You want to see the future, but you cannot. Just as you never foresaw the burning past. What is left then on this path, except to stand still, backpedal, or forge on with but a shimmer of hope? Even a single ray – a single shred of probability and one grain of humanity – for a future, beautiful as life herself?

But you choose life. You choose hope. You choose your future and you live. Because as you step into the mist, full of wonder, under the burning constellations and an endless sky full of stars – you are already beautiful.

The outcome was never guaranteed, but you have already won.