I remember sometime before

When I was younger—

Much younger than I am today;

When I still believed life

Was nothing short of a fairytale

And that there was such a thing as

True love—

I was young

And innocent and carefree,

Still believing that pain was something that

Faded away and scars would heal

And everyone had a soulmate:

A person they adored—

No, more than adored,

Loved—

And with that person

Their world would be complete.

I was wrong.

Here's to the time when

I fantasized of love

And romance

And all the things seen in between

And I,

I was blissfully unaware that

The world held more sinister things,

Thinking that

Fear is an illusion

And hate would always eventually

Transform into something more beautiful in the end.

And here's to life now--

A time when I always

End up feeling as if I'm

Battered and broken

And useless.

I know better than

What I thought then.

I know there is no such thing

As love at first sight or soulmates.

I know that the world is

Filled with pain and fear

And hate

And I now know that scars won't heal...

No--

Scars on skin will disappear,

They always do.

But the ones only you can see,

The ones

Hidden in your heart,

The ones that ache whenever

You cry,

Those can never heal.

I know, now,

That the world is filled with

So much hate,

Too much for us to take,

And I know that

It takes much more than a light to

Scare away the monsters that hid under the bed.

I also now know that they have names:

Depression and Anxiety.

I know that

Fear is real.

It's present in every time we

Stop to think or hesitate about our actions,

And perhaps it

Could be stronger than

Love, even true love,

And ultimately destroy us.

I know, now,

That love is much more than

Shy smiles between two people and

Hands intertwining.

It's more than white dresses and suits

And "I do" and

Perhaps the more infamous

"I don't."

I know that

Love can break,

Just as it could heal

And more often than not,

Love is the illusion,

Not fear--

Fear brought us to love,

Brought us to live in fright

At the idea of living,

And potentially dying,

Alone.

I know, now,

That life turns,

Like a top,

Twirling endlessly round and round and

We wait for it to stop,

And rarely does it ever halt

At the point when happiness is at it's peak,

Instead choosing to land—

Slowly, almost gracefully—

In the midst of darkness.

And yet,

Time and time again,

We would try to spin once more,

Try to bring it back to a time when

Pure hope wasn't constantly blocked by things like

Fear and doubt,

When there was no line between

Logic and nonsense,

When there was no such thing as fear,

And love was engrained in all of us.

Perhaps

When I was younger—

Much younger than I am today—

I wished to grow up,

To experience the world in all it's forms,

To know what I had not known.

But now...

I know, now,

That it is better to believe that

Fear is an illusion

And love won't break your heart

If you take enough care than

To know the truths of the world.