We loved staying up at night,

Staring at the stars above us,

Naming the constellations,

And admiring the bright beauty of the moon.

Those nights were special,

As we talked about seeing the stars,

And our potential to reach them.

We all were broken,

In our own special way.

This brokeness,

And the night sky,

These two things were enough,

To bring us together.

We tried fixing each other,

Since we couldn’t do the same,

For ourselves.

In the end,

With all of our efforts,

We ended up hurting ourselves the most.

We crumbled even more,

And put the blame on each other,

Instead of taking responsibility,

For our own actions.

We had demanded we bring the moon to each other,

And the stars,

One by one,

From the night sky.

But what was the point?

All it would illuminate,

Is the chaos from within,

That we tried so hard to hide from ourselves.

Now we wait,

For the next group of people,

Whose problems we try to fix,

Instead of our own.

Another group,

To stare up at the stars,

And speak of the possibilities,

Just out of our reach.

I believe if you love someone, you want to them to grow and become a better version of who they are now. I got great advice from my boyfriend's mom that takes this a step further: don't enable your partners worst behaviors. Be willing to stand up to your partner when they do something shitty, and have a discussion about it. Don't stand by and let them get away with shitty behavior, because it's just going to get worse as the years go on.

If you don't feel comfortable talking to your partner about these kinds of things, then you should take a step back and evaluate whether it's the relationship holding back in this aspect, or if it's just something you need to work on. Also, you don't need to yell at them or make it a big deal, it can be a simple conversation such as, "Hey Bob, (insert bad behavior) bothers me, because (insert reason)."

An example of this is with my boyfriend and dirty dishes. When we first started dating, he had a habit of leaving old dishes in his room, because he'd get consumed in a project or schoolwork. After we'd been dating for a couple of months, he'd asked if there is any pet peeves I have, and I told him point blank that I thought leaving dirty dishes lying around is gross, and it bothers me. Since then, he always makes an effort to clean up before I get to his house, and now he leaves maybe a plate behind every once in a while.

Essentially, we all love our partners enough to support them and want them to be the best version of themselves, so if you notice something they do that bothers you, talk about it with them.

TAP

He shot up out of bed from a restless sleep. The man’s senses are more acute than from the sudden wake up call. His eyes follow the black shadows dancing along the wall, his ears picking up the slightest creak from the house settling. After a few minutes, he shakes his head, his heavy eyes drifting close until he hears it again.

TAP

This time, he reaches for the baseball bat underneath his bed, grabs the flashlight next to his bed and creeps out of his room, careful to make no noise. He makes his way down the hall of the apartment, stopping at the bathroom, and shining the flashlight inside. Finding no one, he keeps going. Finally, he reaches the living room passing his flashlight along every wall in the room, so nothing is left hidden in the dark.

Only the kitchen is left unchecked.

TAP

The man gulps, and heads to the kitchen with the flashlight held out in front of him. Before he makes it there, a figure passes in front of the beam of light. The man yells, holding up his baseball bat in defense. The figure pays no notice, instead shoving past the man. He’s caught off guard, falling back against the wall. The figure yanks the door open, rushing into the moon light. The man follows the figure outside of the door.

Standing in the light of the moon with his door standing wide open behind him, the man turns to each side, holding the baseball bat up in two hands. The man finds nothing, and closes the door behind him, locking it and the dead bolt above the doorknob. After a moment, the man sighs, and heads back to bed, until a rustle from his front door catches his attention.

On the floor by the door is a note.

The man heads back to the door, picking up the note and reading it.

Thank you for the food, I’ll be back soon!

No name is signed, and the man crumples it in his hand, then throws the note away. This time, he checks every window in the living room and kitchen before heading back to his room.

In his room, the draft from his open window alerts him to the figure standing inside his room, waiting by his bed. The man turns to escape, but this time, the figure overpowers him, dragging him into its shadows and silencing his screams.

“Come with me.”

That’s what he whispered to me that night,

The night when my world was falling apart.

He offered an escape.

When everyone else

Dug their claws into me,

Dragging me down,

He held out his hand,

Willing me to take it.

And I wanted to.

Oh God, did I want to.

Yet, I knew if I tried escaping now,

All I would do was run.

I would run as far away and as fast as possible.

Never looking back.

Never processing what happened.

Never working through the pain.

The escape he offered was more an instant gratification,

Something to keep myself from feeling.

But...

It would only be temporary.

I could keep running.

Away with him,

Then away from him.

Away from my old life,

Never claiming it as my own.

I would leave it behind,

Talk about it like some fictional story,

A nightmare that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

No matter how much I wanted to leave now,

I knew I couldn’t.

So, I don’t take his hand.

He nods,

As if in understanding,

Then leaves me behind.

I do the best I can for myself,

Even if I don’t realize it at the time.

But at some point,

I will look back,

And I will know,

That I did the best I could with the cards I was dealt.

I will realize I stayed true to myself,

Even if it was painful,

So that I could learn and become better.

Because that is what I must do, now and forever.

Til the end.

The streets are eerily quiet, no bustle of life, no one speaking or laughing on this sunny afternoon.

“We never need to shout for our voices to be heard.”

The people have tried to make a difference, to change the world for the better.

“The screaming is what silenced us all in the end.”

It turns out though, that the people have been silenced for far too long.

“Speak too loudly, and you will never speak again.”

The people tried using their words, but they learned that it was to no avail.

“They want us to say something, but we have nothing more to say.”

What a world to live in, filled with the soft whispers of betrayal and the silent declarations of defiance.

“You give us words, but we give you silence. Never will we satisfy you with claps of approval or words of encouragement. Instead, we will let you drown in silence.”

Never again will the people speak to help or to hinder, they will only continue in a life of silence.

“Because of you, words are meaningless, and the only way to find any meaning in life is to not give you any words for you to twist into your own meaning.”

Everything will crumble, until all that is left is nothing, just as the people have decided it shall be.

“You think you have given us the power of voice, but you gave us nothing. So, we give you nothing back.”

Never again will there be a voice of the people, as the people never truly had a voice to begin with.

Do you see it?

The little yellow flower,

Blooming despite the cold.

It lives loudly and proudly,

Never apologizing for who it is.

It lives through the rainy days,

Basks in the sunny days,

And stands out most on the cloudy days.

This little flower lived outside my window,

In the little garden across the way.

This past week when I looked over,

All I saw were its wrinkled leaves,

Brown and dying.

When I looked around it though,

The other flowers were bursting to life all around it,

With their bright pinks, oranges, and yellows,

Although the yellow flower is no more,

There is still color in the world to be seen.

How do you hurt someone?

What is the most fragile part of their being?

Find that one spot,

Where when you poke it,

Everything crumbles.

Their confidence,

Their will,

Their energy,

All of it crumbling.

You build them up,

Make them believe that everything will get better.

Then,

With no warning,

You rip it away from them,

Push them,

So that they’re left falling into the darkness.

They grasp on to anything.

Anything that will take their mind off of it for a minute,

That’s enough for them.

Eventually,

They can’t handle the memories,

The hopelessness,

The fear,

So they drown themselves to find an escape.

The woman sat in her wooden rocking chair,

Gazing up at the stars every night,

Appreciating their beauty.

She wanted them for herself,

So she took them down,

One by one from the night sky.

Soon the sky became

An unimaginable darkness.

But with the stars so close,

She did not seem to notice.

She also never realized,

How bright the stars really were.

The light grew too much for her,

And in the end,

They blinded her.

She hated the stars for this,

So she hid them away,

To never be seen again.

Now all she wants is to forget,

About the stars and their beauty.

So she takes comfort in knowing,

The sky will always be dark,

Whether she can see it or not.

Then one day she hears a voice,

Of a little girl asking her a question,

“Excuse me, but can you help me? I’ve lost my way home,”

The woman replied,

“I cannot help you little one,

For I am blind and cannot see you or anything around me.”

She hears the girl sniffle then say,

“It’s so dark out here, I don’t know what to do.”

The woman says nothing, and the girl whispers,

“I’m so scared.”

The woman feels a tug at her heart,

Knowing that she can help.

Will she forgive the stars?

The little girl continues sniffling,

And now is softly sobbing.

She is so scared,

Can the woman let her hatred,

Interfere with this girl’s life?

Finally the woman whispers so softly,

She didn’t know if the girl could hear her,

“Look under the porch for a jar full of light.

When you open it, the stars will fly free and help you home.”

Silence.

But then she hears the girl shuffle away from her.

The creaking boards say,

She is heading up the porch.

Then the creaks and pops move,

To the end of the porch.

Then the rustle of clothing,

As she lays down to peer underneath.

A little gasp and a pop,

And the woman knows the girl will find her way home.

The little girl giggles and yells a quick,

“Thank you!”

Then the lightly padding feet,

Are growing faint,

And the little girl is finally gone.

The woman leans back in her rocking chair,

Her head tilted towards the stars she cannot see.

Though she still hates the stars for what they did to her,

She realizes that she cannot hide them away anymore.

Otherwise,

How will those who are lost,

Find their way home?

When I think of my brain, I think of rolling mists.

I think of fog so thick that you can’t even see an inch in front of you.

I think of the heavy humidity that hangs in the air right before it rains.

Every thought I have weighs heavily on my brain; it takes so much energy for that thought to exist that it’s hard for me to do much else besides think.

My mind is a cloud; grogginess prevents me from focusing on what is happening right in front of me.

Sometimes it seems like I will never see things clearly; how can I see clearly if my mind doesn’t even think clearly?

I tried to get more sleep, tried exercising, tried eating properly, but even if my mind seems less foggy, I still feel it pulling at the corners of my mind.

It’s strange really, because there are moments where everything suddenly sharpens, and I find the clarity that I’ve always been seeking.

Then, just as quickly as it appeared, it disappears once again.