How does one find faith during a tough time,
To choose a path that's an impossible climb?
How can one smile when everything goes wrong
Knowing that you'll be fine, that you'll be strong?
How does one build up the courage to stay
When every bit of you wants to run away?
How can one resist from giving up hope
Even when you hold on to the thinnest rope?
How does one learn to get up from a fall
When no one teaches it to you, at all?
I'm looking for answers in a dark room
Unsure if I'm headed for light or doom.
If anyone reading this has a clue
Tell me how you did it, I'll learn from you.

I have no more words left in me
I can't find any new story
Where did they go? Are they all used?
I can't help but feel confused.

When did they fly so far away?
I can't quite remember the day.
All I know is that I can't write
Like before- when it felt so right.

Now it feels weird to attempt it
I'm searching for words that don't fit
I'm looking for poems that I can't find
In my lost, perplexed maze of a mind.

Dear 2018,

I probably wrote this a year ago
To 2017, your predecessor
I write this to you again with the faith
That you would be kinder, wise and nicer
By sending me help when I need it most
By teaching me more than I never knew
As I learn and relearn by stumbling and falling-
When 2019 begins, I hope I'll be thanking you.

Yours hopefully,

Marya

There are days when I drown in emotion
When I bleed it out, with words on a sheet
The pain, the grief, the anger or envy
Regret, heartbreak, hatred till I'm replete.

So then I decide not to write again-
I don't want to swim in self-pity.
But I break; I cannot stop! How could I?
Poems bring out light when life is ******.

My words may be crude, they're surely broken,
With no rhythm, rhyme, or sense, many a time.
Yet they weave a thread that guides me ahead,
That holds me aloft when I cease to climb.

Someday no one will ask me "How'd YOU get here?"
"Who helped you? Whose reference did you find?"
Someday no one will ask me "Are you sure?"
"Are you sure you can get out of this grind?"
Someday no one will tell me "No, you can't"
"You're not made for this, you're too **** stupid."
Someday no one can tell me "You're too scared"
"You won't ever find love, cursed by Cupid."

One day they'll look above and be blinded
Deafened, tongues struck dumb, speechless to their core
I'll have forged my way with grit and power
They'll reel with swallowed words bruising them sore
I'll have won my battles, winning the war
No longer can filthy gossip be spoken
Quietened for eternity, their silent breaths
Healing the hearts of the people they'd broken.

I have a new, gigantic dream
It's young, rosy and far away
I know what to do to reach it
But there's only 24 hours in a day.

I do the things that should be done
For my lamp to still burn bright
I tell my dream "Wait just a bit longer
I'll work towards you in the night."

Will I ever reach it finally?
I don't have a good guide
Working with instinct I can say
"At least I will have tried."