The opposite of darkness isn't light, its love.

They told me, look for the light in which darkness conquers you..

As if darkness could be outrun

They told me, “The opposite of darkness is light.” 

Something bright and bold, 

Something that makes your melanin glow,

That lets you shine seamlessly.  

But-

I've seen the lights flicker

I've seen the candles drown their own wax,

Bulbs burst,

and sunsets swallowed by storms

Light… fades.

But love —

Love stays.

See, darkness isn't just the physical absence of light

It's the silence of the gunshots,

The echo that lingers in a crowded classroom

Where students once dreamed of futures

Not funerals.

It's a mother

Watching her child become a hashtag, 

A face frozen in pixels, 

A life reduced to a post, 

a moment mourned, then scrolled past 

But love–

Love is the voice that says their names anyway. 

Love is the vigil that still burns at midnight,

The hands that refuse to stop lighting candles

Even after the wax runs dry.

Darkness is the people who fight harder

For the right to bear arms

Than for children to stay alive

When that right rings louder than safety,

When survival becomes a privilege 

Too expensive for a child to afford– 

That is darkness.

But love–

Love stands in the street with shaking hands,

Holding signs heavier than grief,

Shouting for lives that should still be here. 

It's here in classrooms, too

Rewriting history,

Blurring blood from the margins,  

because, truth, they say

It's too vile to teach. 

Because discomfort matters more than honesty.

But comfort

Was never made for us.

And love–

Love is the teacher who tells it anyway, 

The lesson that refuses to be erased,

The truth spoken even when voices tremble.

It's 2026.

Why do we still walk home, lungs tight..

Counting every step?

Why does the air feel colder now? 

colder than it used to be

Why do we hold our breath just to make it home?

Because safety feels like a privilege 

Because “ICE” 

Is no longer something you buy–

It's something that haunts you down,

Because being able to breathe, to belong, to simply be

Is now considered a crime

A threat to society. 

But love–

Love is the hand we refuse to let go of.

The doors that still open

The families that refuse to break

Even when the world tries to tear them apart

So where does love come in?

It’s in the names we refuse to forget.

The candles we relight 

Even after they burn out.

It’s in the mothers who keep speaking, 

In Communities that keep marching

In Children who still dare to dream

In rooms that tried to silence them.

Love is not fragile, and it does not flicker like light,

It does not disappear in storms or shatter like glass.

Love endures,

It resists, remembers, it rebuilds.

Because too many only care 

When the silence reaches their own home

When the name sounds like someone they love.

But love– but love refuses to wait that long

And when darkness comes, as it always has, as it always will

Love is what remains.