To the lost

To the lost,

I pray you find your way home.

Not to the place you came from,

but to the place inside yourself

that still remembers who you are.

To the wounded,

I pray you learn that what hurt you

does not get to own the rest of your life.

I pray you forgive the unspeakable—

not because it was acceptable,

not because it did not matter,

but because you deserve to stop carrying

what someone else placed in your hands.

I pray the wound closes gently.

I pray the scar becomes proof

that healing happened there.

To the sleeping,

I pray you wake softly.

Not frightened.

Not ashamed of how long you slept.

Not angry at the version of you

who did what they had to do

to survive the night.

I pray consciousness finds you

like morning light slipping through curtains—

slowly,

warmly,

without force.

To the afraid,

I pray you discover

that courage is not the absence of fear.

Sometimes courage is simply

taking the next step

while your hands are still shaking.

To the lonely,

I pray you become a place

you no longer have to abandon.

I pray you learn to sit beside yourself

until your own presence

begins to feel like company.

To the ones still searching,

I pray you stop mistaking

someone else’s path

for your own.

Take what helps.

Leave what does not.

Listen closely.

Your life has been speaking to you

the entire time.

And as for me—

I will keep walking.

Not because I know the whole way.

Not because I have arrived.

But because I have learned

how to carry light

without pretending the darkness never existed.

So I will keep marching.

Torch in hand.

Not to save anyone.

Not to convince anyone.

Not to drag the sleeping awake.

Only to leave enough light behind me

that someone walking through their own night

might look up and realize—

there is a way home.