In certain lives, there comes a time where there is nothing left to live for, and all the remains within your dim existence is a shallow pool of wasted hopes and dreams.

Where skies no longer display hues of blue but instead produce red toxic fumes, while you wither away, questioning your own self-worth.

Dying with every breathe you take, crying with every sound you make.

These times may nearly destroy you. They may burn you alive, producing putrid black wounds, ripping away at your flesh and exposing you to the world.

They may leave you stranded alone, ******* the air from your lungs and leaving black holes in your heart. Black holes that render you helpless, as you struggle to save the last bit of sanity you have left to hold onto.

You may be slammed against the ground so hard that every last bone in your body breaks and you are suddenly knocked unconscious, unable to pick yourself off of the blood stained floor where your limp body remains.

Depression; a single word that holds such a strong meaning and has so much authority that it's mere presence is enough to weigh you down.

It's mere existence is so powerful that to be forcibly locked within it's thorny flesh-tearing arms leaves it's victims in such a dis-functional and discouraged state that escaping it's clutches seems nearly impossible.

This monster resides in a place where holding onto one's life is the hardest challenge you could possibly face.

Where no one else can see the darkness or hear the desperate cries for help.

Where no one else is capable of fathoming it's destructive soul-******* power.

Where no one is able to witness the killing of a soul and the slow but gradual declining of the ability to survive.

No one can understand until they have plummeted themselves into this dark abyss that travels down the the core of the Earth and devours you whole, this dark abyss known as depression.

You don't have remind yourself every day that you stand in this place. Because what is it worth simply rolling around in it's molten liquid until it kills you?

For even when there is no visible light at the end of the tunnel, you have to squint your eyes and look harder. Stare and stare until you see that light appear.

Even if it is just a spec of light poking through the darkness. Even if it appears to be thousands of miles away.

For even a spec of light is an opportunity to find your way out, an escape route in a blackened world.

You have to believe that even though your mind says that there is absolutely no hope left, even when life has disowned you, crushed you and has hit you with all it's might, you will make it out of this place.

You have to believe that this is the ultimate test of strength, your story as the lowly under-dog, rising to the top and conquering everything that once stood in your path even when it stood taller than what you thought you could handle.

The under-dog that was mocked and pushed around, that same soul that everyone spit on and deemed as unworthy of even the ground they stood on.

YOUR beautiful soul, that has been ignored, and cast as a shadow in this world. Even when no one was able to see your glory, not even yourself, you have to believe that you are a human-being.

Capable of climbing out of the darkest hole, finding your way out of the longest tunnel, balancing on a tight rope no thicker than a strand of hair.

You have to believe that you are worthy of the life you've been given, you are worthy of that happiness just within your own reach.