Stay strong when people leave. Don’t lose yourself when people lose you, instead find yourself. Find the beauty in your details, find the parts of yourself that people overlook, find your strength because once you find it, no one can take it away from you.
Stay strong when the world turns against you. Stand tall in the face of the storm, even if the wind knocks you down, stand back up. It’s okay to be bruised, it’s okay to bleed but it’s not okay to stay on the ground, it’s not okay to stay broken, it’s not okay to allow the world to make you weak. The world only wants to make you stronger by testing how much you can really take.
Stay strong when you can’t get out of bed. When your knees are weak and your heart is heavy, crawl. Crawl until you walk and walk until you run and run until you fly. Start somewhere. Start anywhere but GET OUT OF BED. Wake up because that’s how you live and that’s how you fight for your life. That’s how you fight the things you can’t control.
Stay strong because your strength is your shield. Your strength is your guide. Your strength is your light.
Even though it’s easier said than done, it could still be done. Even though it might take years of practice, you can still do it. Even though it takes everything in you to find it, it returns it all back to you.
Stay strong because that’s how you stop people from breaking you and how you stop things from destroying you. Stay strong because you are stronger than your worries, stronger than your challenges, stronger than your hardships and stronger than your pain.
Stay strong because your battles will not win themselves, your demons won’t just disappear overnight and you can’t be at war with yourself when the world is at war with you.
Stay strong because you’re a warrior and warriors don’t always win but they never stop fighting, they never stop trying and they never give up.
Stay strong because one of those days, people will look at you as an inspiration, as someone who fought, someone who persisted and someone who prevailed.
Stay strong because your strength is making other people stronger. 
Rania Naim is a poet and author of the new book All The Words I Should Have Said, available here.
