Boca Raton Community High School
by Mariana Ceglio Fritzen
There was a time when the night
It seemed eternal,
And the heart, tired,
Asked for silence.
There were days when everything seemed heavy,
When the silence
was greater than any hug.
The weight of the soul cried out,
and the desire to leave
was greater than the courage to stay.
I thought the end would be a relief,
a respite from all the pain.
The loneliness was intense,
and fear was like a chain that bound me.
Everything seemed doomed to emptiness,
as if the world had lost its colors.
Winter embraced me
with cold, heavy hands,
and I believed that I would never
see spring again.
But suddenly the rain came.
And every drop took away a piece of my pain.
The sun, shy, broke through the clouds
and warmed me up again.
The pain hasn't gone away,
but I've learned to walk with it.
Every tear has watered
seeds of strength and hope.
And with the dawn
shy colors bloom,
and life whispers softly:
"you haven't finished,
you've started again".
Today, where there was shadow,
there is light.
Where there was fear,
there are firm steps.
And in the gaze that once wanted to close,
there is now an open horizon.
Because my soul has discovered
that surviving
is also to be reborn.
I'm not the same as before;
I'm stronger,
I am whole,
I am the life that has chosen to flourish.
And if one day I thought about the end,
today I'm walking towards the beginning.
I carry my scars with courage,
I turn my pain into strength,
and I embrace life,
knows that starting over is the greatest victory—
an eternal triumph of hope.
Adult Learner Mariana Fritzen, Boca Raton Community High School. Shown with Carlos Mahecha, CBS 12 Sinclair Broadcasting Group, Literacy Coalition CEO Kristin Calder, and Fred Barch, Director School District of PBC, Department of Adult Education and Community Education.