Teen
THE FIGHT TO Fighting for love is the fight to save a life.
Love
T
who’ve so completely given themselves to causes they don’t believe in, so they can do the “right” thing and learn to succeed. Their entire identity is shattered and suffocated and whatever greatness they could contribute is lost and unseen. There are people, bleeding out and left for dead, forced to believe that it’s their fault they were so brutally beaten, and they deserve the slow death they await.
There are people who believe they are no better than the dirt and trash they are surrounded by. There are people who have been locked away in towers and told what they see is all that exists of the world, but they are kings and queens of them and should relish in their lofty cages. There are people told daily they are worthless, they must deny what their hearts are desperately shouting and listen only to the voices of fear, hate, and selfishness and learn to call it love. There are people
These people exist, and they are everywhere - some parading around in false guises of perfection, some going through the motions of lives so much less than they deserve, some just waiting and desperately hoping someone will come along and finally hear them. The fight for love is the fight to see through the makeup, to notice the monotony, to hear the voices ignored by so many. The fight to love is to see it all and refuse to walk by unaffected. Love fights, tooth and nail, to bring freedom to every caged heart. Love motivates with desperation to help them see they can fly, and love waits patiently to teach them how to do so on their own. Love creates love; it is a constantly expanding army spurred by one brave warrior saving, inspiring, and building up another. This battle can be incredibly painful at times, opening wounds and leaving scars, but the fight to set any heart free to contribute to the beauty of the world is a fight that is never in vain l
kWRITTEN BY HAYLEY PUGH
FOR HER BLOG MOUNTAINS AND VALLEYS
o set someone free from their oppression they must come to believe it’s not reality. Show them the bars of their cage are not the limits to their destiny. Help them see in themselves what their surroundings have convinced them does not exist; it’s total liberation. The fight for love takes the hand of someone beaten and broken, left alone in the mud and cleans them off to show them the world - both the one around them that they’ve been missing out on and the one existing inside their heart, growing and thriving despite how much their oppressors deny it.
476 TEEN
FLUENTIAL JULY / AUGUST 2018
