Starlight

Do you see the stars, my darling? Looking at them now is like staring right at the past - the flickers we see are from hundreds of years back. Old stars, small stars, dead stars - those that shine on without the need for consent and those that have quietly retreated to a dim.

We’re surrounded by the past, you see - and if I had the chance to, I wouldn’t change anything. It’s quite eerie to still find you here, in this corner of my mind, still urging these tips to form words driven by memory that should have long been gone with you. And yet there you are - looking up at the swift, scattered sprinkle of starlight on daring navy skies. Our hands clasped in between my sarong that you never seemed to like and I never had the interest to leave. With the distant sound of the blues murmuring in tandem with sea hitting shore. Your lashes still casting a soft shadow on the hollow of your eyes. My mind still wondering how we never said it, but I always knew you were never mine.

It’s a shame, really, I still see you like this. So clear, in that ironic we-never-even-were-this-clear way. And I guess I could never blame you for not loving me in that intensity. In the beginning I kind of always knew what I had gotten myself into; I’d deny it now if anyone asked me, as I could never truly admit to being such an adamant fool for love, but in secret I take pride for having braved through it all with such positivity even I tricked myself.

There simply are just no more words - I feel like I have drained all my efforts in trying to cope with the unapologetic space I all of a sudden have to buffer every single day in memory of what was, and what can never be. The steps I take these days with a slight drag, my choice of driving music, the kind of books I read, the sudden quiet that steals my eyes and prompts stares hung heavy on absolutely nothing - they expose me - and all that I loved, and now, lacked.

So I stare at the stars and replay that memory until it hurts so much I don’t even remember how I used to love staring up at the stars with you. And I look at them intently and call them fools, and cowards, and manipulative shiny little pricks for making me believe they were beams of hope - that maybe we can look straight into the past and long, and remember and relive and actually not regret it. But I was wrong and I am still - I look at these stars, and I hear the crashing of the seas, and dig my feet deep under cold sand, and brush my cheeks with the kind, wild, gush of wind - and remember you still. In that same place in my mind. Right beside me, where you never truly were mine.