dearest, you.

remember when i told you that the stars could be ours if only we kept the courage to dream through the night? we were both null and naïve then, before the dark became a tangible force that resided permanently in the closet, under the bed, within our minds.

i think of us now, of that conversation we had all those years ago, and i wonder if you regret any of it. it was us and the stars and mayhaps there was no distinguishable difference between us and the dots that littered the sky like pepper spilt on the floor. we became what we thought were grown people but little did we know that adults and suns are synonyms of the same meaning. it took only strength to mature, to bloom until we fully understood just what our childish minds could not: that there was beauty even in the thick black; that the stars were not bright 'cept when thrown onto the canvas of nothing, of unnoticed, of isolation. and this was where our affliction began: blindness hindered us like an astronaut trying to reach the moon whilst caged in a cell of his own making. don't you see? we only became bright when we embraced the dark around us, within us, whatever. this was where we belonged. where we were perfected. purified. cicatrized. there was something beautiful about the tar we found in our hearts, the way we commanded it when it threatened to silence us. the way we forged diamonds from the inky coal of our bones. every scratch, every burn, every drop of blood formed a story we're still learning to tell, yet with every word, i feel simultaneously closer to you and farther than ever before. the shadows yield mere breath, where we are not caged by our expectations and the expectations held over us like the inevitable death of a character we have come to love. in the shadows, we didn't have to be anyone and at the same time, we could be anyone. there was a kind of surety in the not-knowing, as ironic as that would seem. we could be no one and someone all at once, both the ant squished 'neath a girl's sparkly light-up sketchers shoe and the girl herself, intentions debatable.

there's a part of me--however small and insignificant--that misses that version of us. we thought we could take on the world, little us in our treehouse-turned-fortress and patchy capes. that is, until your mother called us inside to leave for church because gosh, sage, it takes you ten minutes to find your shoes and you're going to make us late! but we were free then, free to think our thoughts and feel our feelings without anyone breathing down our necks. but i suppose if i'm being honest, no star ever came into being without first surviving unimaginable pressure, gravitational forces so intense that the cloud of gas had no choice but to redefine itself, to recreate itself as something new. something beautiful. something that now inspires us to do the same. and that's not to say that it didn't--that it doesn't--that it won't--hurt like hell, and who's to say that we'll come out of it alive? but if this is all for perfection, then count me in. because i refuse to remain in this state of perpetual unfinishing. refinery has never been easy or comfortable, but it's the process that makes the flawless result so breathtaking.

you never understood that; i can see it all so clearly. you only ever cared about the now, but of course there's nothing wrong with that at four, eight, twelve years old when you're young and free, when the future is as distant as the stars we dreamt upon. but you're older now. i'm older now, and it's time to step up and accept that who we are in this moment is not our forever. so allow yourself to be hurt beyond imaginable redemption, and you might just find that the stars are far closer than you ever thought.

godspeed, estella.

these tears tell a story i don't know how to read but the pain is felt in waves, coursing over me like sand that gets caught in all the wrong places. i wish i could tell you that i'm okay, but my fingers are bleeding and there is nothing i can do to stop the words that flow out of me at awkward angles. i wish i could tell you that it's going to get better, but the stars do not deserve a place in this night. one life was never enough for us. you can shut the fuck up, kennedy. if you knew what loss was, one life might begin to feel like an eternity, and you might be grateful. five years was all she got. and those five years might have felt like a lifetime if the world had the good sense to slow down just a bit. but pain waits for no one, and so i am here, embraced by these tears that shatter me with every drop. there is no light here; none but the letters that form these broken words i will never be strong enough to speak. she will never read these words, never know that she was supported by so many strangers, much less me, but maybe that's okay. maybe there's purpose to the pain that i will never understand. i think that i have already come to terms with that. what i will never come to terms with is the injustice that doesn't deserve a single breath in this world, yet that suffocates those of us who thought we had hope. the moment's already gone, but there's nothing left to prove to this world that good ever existed. that she ever existed, save for the swollen touch of family and strangers alike. she deserved more time. she deserved the years that i don't want. she deserved the moon and the stars, but she was forced to the ground, forced to be content with the too-little time she got and the gravity that kept her from her dreams. she deserved poetic beauty. she deserved to know how much she was loved.

and she deserved a name.

it was the kind of chill that seeped into your toes, quickly moving to your heart. hot chocolate flowed, but so did the tears. laughter that became gasps of tragedy and terror. the air held anxious anticipation.

i'm not sure if i could pinpoint the moment i realized that something was wrong. maybe it was the running, or the wide eyes as the news spread. maybe it was the first time i heard what was happening. maybe it was when she started to cry. green pirouettes-turned-sobs became the single thought that ran rampant through my head and i couldn't stop thinking about how people could comment on the weather, on the hot chocolate, on well wasn't the bus driver just amazing? maybe it was warm. maybe it was good. maybe he was amazing. but you're missing the entire fucking point. someone's life has just been impacted. this was her everything, and now she will be forced to live in a world that won't accept her dreams, her aspirations. you can be positive all you want, but wait until you're the one who got run over by a brakeless truck and you'll realize that positivity is entirely unwanted. wait until you've woken up in a hospital and been told that your lifeblood has been stolen from you in one moment of brake failure.

no, positivity had no place on this day.

she deserved more than this.

--

https://abc7.com/raleigh-nc-christmas-parade-2022-accident-truck-crash/124718717/

it was you and me beneath the wide open sky

it's your smile all i can see in these moments passing by

wish you could be here hand in hand by my side

maybe then i could dream about the lights

but the cold wraps me in its lonely embrace

the dark waltzes, epitome of glorious grace

i'm lost, the words can't even fill the page

but where are you now, i just wish you had stayed

flashes of us keep me up late into the night

dancing in the dark, when everything felt right

you and me and the horizon there was nothing holding us back

now it's just me and these walls, i just want you back

lyrics i wish were mine but you took them with you

remember when i was naive, i want to start anew

i'm trying to rebuild a crown from these shatters on the floor

you were my all, now is it so wrong for me to wish for more?

breaking   bubbling   red-hot

lack of respect   merciless

cold faking smiles

power hungry   power trip

w  a   k  e  u  p

you're not fooling anyone

with your christian charades

CLOUDS /T͟Hə ˈmikstāp/ (release)

1. LAYERS of evaporated water that float in the atmosphere, DRIFTING in the sky

2. often the subject of a comparison or STORY, as determined by its shape

"That cloud looks JUST LIKE YOU!"

"There once was a PRIDEFUL king who got LOST on his way through the woods..."

3. metaphorically hazy terms, uncertain

"TRUST me, I PAID MY DUES; why won't you believe me?"

"Ain't no way, bro! THAT'S A JOKE!"

see also: Hopsin, Tech N9ne

-purple-

[lavender]

showed me the dreams i was too scared to nurture

guided my hand to the sweet affections, bitter confections, and single tears that followed

pushed me forward; thinking, feeling, learning beneath the fleeting sunshine

[violet]

taught me to wander the night, to seek the stars, to love hard and without fear

warned me that the pain would come, eventually, but promised to cushion the fall

raised me in the art of words, the weaving of stories and the nonsensical

-blue-

[cerulean]

eternal, praising the glories and the failures, smiling lies and aimless wandering

exploring my heart, mending minuscule cracks, healing shatters

wide open and changing with the seasons, falling with the stars

[navy]

guided the flash of silver, the purification of flesh tainted and irreversible

whispered the lies and the truths, however undiscernable in the moment

flowed streams, rivers, lakes, oceans of salt and pain

-orange-

[peach]

promised worthy justification in time, encouraged patience until it wasn't enough

but we tried to make the world a better place, just the two of us

spurring onward, even through the work and the exhaustion--past all breaking points

[neon]

pushed me to do things i didn't want to do; control freak, power trip, my fault

bright and pulsing, flaming and fuming, smoking and the embers left behind

have to put these broken pieces back together before they return and find this in ruins

-red-

[pink]

twisted fate and pulled strings until i found you and freedom and the stars in the same night

moved us closer than we ever thought we could be, noticing the blushes and stolen glances

but all we were was held hands and held secrets

[cherry]

badass daring and uncontrollable feelings found us at the corner of wanting and needing

we found the sun in the darkness beneath the covers, limbs entangled

high heels and lipstick couldn't stop you from that last look in your eyes

--

references to "an evening i will not forget" by dermot kennedy

My mother always told me that there was beauty in the unknown. I never truly understood what that meant until I was staring the unknown in the face. It was breathtaking. I think sometimes we get so focused on the known and how it affects us that we take for granted the journey of the discovery. At least, that's what my mother believed. It was poetic, how much she sought adventure, right up until the adventure found her unexpectedly and she wasn't prepared. She died when I was twelve. I still don't know how. But I never forgot the look she got in her eyes whenever she found something new. It scared me sometimes. That she might just seek the next adventure and then lose herself in the dreams.

But now the unknown is staring me in the face and I have to make a choice. Do I follow in the footsteps of my late mother, whose voice I still hear guiding me forward even now, or do I choose to be content with the known, the safe, the sure?

This is the choice I face now, as the shadows loom in front of me, promising life, love, happiness. But also pain. Loss. Corruption.

I don't know what I will find on the other side. I don't know if I'll regret being fearless. I'm sure my mother did the moment she realized that she wasn't ever going to return home. But I have the same choice to face now that she did all those years ago. The end is calling me, and whether it will be the end of life or death, I suppose I won't know until it's too late. But as for me, if this rapid fire beating of my heart is any indication, then I know that I cannot just stay here and do nothing. 

With the courage of my mother as the wind in my sails, I inch slowly toward the wall of shadows in front of me. So close that I could reach out and touch them. With one final breath, I push into the darkness, and the world goes black.

--

word count: 356

happy november, writers! thus begins the journey of our protagonist (still unnamed) as she sets off to discover what exists beyond the edge of the world. please reach out if you would like regular chapter notifications! <3

part i

thoughts scream into these claustrophobic cages: why am i here?

cowardly confessions before cross-turned-gavel with no grace for the tears, the whispered crimson stains held within the secrets of the in-between.

"next! why are you here?"

a choice of controlling sovereignty against the breath of fear, kneeling unworth with no better answer than the rebellious nakedness of truth, stolen grasps with little tolerance for selfish/less words sitting on the bedside table.

"YOU FAILED ME!"

yawning disappointment, shame unexplainable, regret...?

"depart from me; I never knew you."

traitorous commands uncharacteristic, yet believed in the presence of perfectionist facades. broken before the flawless, sick-borderline-healed before the whole.

pretzels and water at thirty thousand and suddenly

oh! it was an open embrace and understanding that awaited that dying nineteen-year-old. but some secrets are better left unspoken, for the sake of the twenty million... but at what cost?

part ii

I'M gluing the stars to the falling sky when the fear finds my näive heart, lie after lie---clouds upon clouds---and a child crying. curled in the grassy knoll overgrown with weeds, grass, wildflowers...?

NOT healing but irreparably broken, oh! those shatters were windblown, carried with the final breath of prayers unanswered.

WHO will remember the girl of the fields after the trees fall away beneath the oppressive weight of reality?

YOU hypocrite! a chosen single of millions to witness the murder of hope, yet doesn't tell her story---a voice that doesn't speak, useless.

THINK now, but it's too late: she's gone. tears on engraved stone, rain overflowing from bloodred windows. you wonder how you missed it but it was right in front of you the whole time.

I let go of the expectation of vulnerability when you averted your eyes, but

AM i still as beautiful as the girl of the evergreens?

--

inspired by clayton jennings' confessions

i. reduced to a singularity of twitching anxiety,

i stood on those risers and projected the confidence i knew i lacked.

hands shaking, heart beating faster, faster, f a s t e r

everyone around me moving, talking, singing

too many voices in my mind that won't shut up.

ii. hidden beneath layers of individuality,

i don't stand out, a one in a sea of hundreds

maybe if they don't notice me, they won't notice when i leave.

iii. eyes, locked on mine, almost as intently as my own,

would be off-putting if it weren't so home.

without fear in your eyes, the future of uncertainty

but now all the anxiety is gone, pouf.

iv. you will never know the impact your unflinching gaze had on me.