-
Among the Stars
The stars looked so bright tonight. She looked up, chin held to the sky, and hoped that maybe they were shining a little brighter for her. In fact, she knew they were. Each twinkling light screamed her name in a defiant and confident tone. They told her of her beauty and grace, of the things she would do, of the people she would love, and most importantly - of all those that would love her.
She laughed with a humbling shrug and walked into the looming house she sometimes called home. The stars remained outside, waiting for her return with unblinking, startling eyes. All was fine, she decided.
But inside the turmoil began, a truth stirred and yelled faults at all parties. She knew her place and her part but she could not change them. The words that spilled from her mouth at all angles and attitudes threw so many bad things into the mix. But she needed them. She didn’t know how else to break through the barriers standing in her way.
So the fight sprung and for reasons known and unknown it grew and expanded and became swollen to a breaking point. And that point broke always as she returned from her place among the stars. She didn’t know how to fix it, how to fix the tears spilling down her cheeks every night as she prayed aloud to a God she wasn’t sure existed.
There was so much stupidity and ruthlessness and even a spirit of revenge between the parties. A fight was never fair and this had not become the exception to the rule. But the politics and the feelings had always separated automatically in attempts to sear her only defense: her heart.
It had grown so long. So fast and so hard and with such determination. She let so many people inside of it. And the ones that stayed awhile eventually ran up to the sky, to watch her like the bright lights they already were.
Things weren’t fixed easily and things weren’t smoothed over with any kind of balance. But as she ran back out to the stars, she felt a jolt of pain. It was a pain unlike any other - a mixture of happiness and sadness and longing for a thing so far gone.
Inside they sat with weary eyes and heavy feet. She could not move them. Not even with her words, which she knew for some time. The syllables she spoke, and more importantly wrote, seemed to roll off them effortlessly. While everyone else stopped a moment to see what she had to say next…all her important words could not reach their destination.
She forced them into the night air and pointed to the dotted sky above. They stared at her in disbelief, unable to grasp what they were supposed to see.
“The stars, the stars. They shine so bright, and on some nights I know they shine for me. And I shine right back.”
“They’re just stars,” they stated.
“No, see, they are the most important people in the world to me. Every one of those stars I would die for. I would give everything in me to those stars.”
“It’s not about this,” they said. “It’s about your actions and your reactions and all in between. We do not doubt what you say but we see no point to stating it now.”
She sighed. She was unsure of so much, especially how to convey this complex message in such a simple way. And suddenly, she knew.
“I wanted you to be up there. In the stars…shining down on me.”
They stared once more. She made no sense and her words seems structured to say something that hadn’t answered any of their questions at all.
But it was so much more.
“I don’t know how to tell you who I am. I’ve been trying to show you all along. I believe you when you say that you find love in your heart saved just for me. And I know that the things you ask cannot be ignored at a consistent rate.”
They nodded.
“But this is me. Here I am. Shouting all I believe and am to you. And you shut me out. Goodbye, get going, this is stuff we don’t need to hear.”
She looked up once more, “See, those two empty spots there in the sky? You were there once. Your lights could be seen from miles and miles and miles. You tucked me in at night and blew me kisses and made me happy. You told me to believe in myself and believe in my abilities. But one day you fell down and you never got the courage to go up again. You tried and tried but I pushed you down and eventually the motivation left altogether.”
They had looked up as well, staring hard at the spots she had once held them.
“I don’t know how to love you anymore and there’s nobody to teach me. All I know is that when I’m here I’m always alone. It isn’t about showing you these stars to make you feel worthless and unimportant. These stars are apart of me, as you were.
Life isn’t about the little battles. It’s about the big ones. It’s about hearts and what they feel and how they feel it. It’s not nonsense and it’s not a distraction but instead a guide to what could be and should be.”
A shooting star shot across the sky.
“And what star was that? It only stayed for a moment,” they said.
“That was me.”
