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There are some people who roam this planet with out ever really understanding the other side of life. They have suffered all the usual heart aches. Cheating partners, back stabbing best friends, death of a loved one. But never have they seen the darkness that makes the down fallen so beautiful.

In saying this I don't mean that those who have not seen the darkness are not beautiful because most of them are. What I am saying is that there is a particular beauty for those who have crawled on their hands and knees through the bog. A bog that sometimes drags and consumes them so that they surrender and become nothing but a sad memory or a faded photograph with folded edges and tear stains.

Those who make it out the other side are scarred. However these scars do not disfigure them. The scars run thick through body memory and mind. The scars eat away a little at their insides every time life dishes out a plate of coal.

The down fallen are beautiful because of their strength. Because despite the fact that they feel as though they are bursting at the seams, they still get out of bed, they still offer you their smile. They still feign happiness to make sure that you are happy.

If you're really lucky, you might get a glimpse inside these stunning minds. If you're lucky. You might get to see into the soul of a person who had to pretend to be an adult way before their time and find that this person is still just a child, fabulous in all their simplicity and dying to be loved and protected. You may also see into the inner working of someone who seems so hard and worn and find, a soft person yearning to find the good in everything despite all the troubles that life has dealt them.

Unfortunately too many of the down fallen give up too soon. Unfortunately often other people don't ever offer the down fallen the patience to really get to know who they are. and perhaps see the beauty that pain can cause.

"As a torn paper might seal up its side,
Or a streak of water stitch itself to silk
And disappear, my wound has been my healing,
And I am made more beautiful by losses."


- 4 lines from a poem by Howard Moss