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Jan 2020
Stargazing.
The study of bright lights niched across dim sky with fascination.
Bright lights called stars mark the canvas with the points for constellations.
Painting the stories of great triumphs or dark tales of tribulations.
Like the scars along our skin that tell of our actions, and their culminations.

You see, my sister has a white mark on her forehead from us playing at four years old.
We were running around our house until she smacked her head on the corner wall.
And back then I was crying and wailing ****** ****** at the age of four years old.
Now, I jokingly smile at the scar, like a reminder to me to not run in the halls.
But not every reminder is careless and cute like the one my sister holds.

Like the one down my left leg telling of the time I failed a box jump back in eighth grade.
It isn’t obvious, but I could point to it because I remember when I used to analyze it everyday.
And I analyzed it until the cut on my skin left a constellation of fear in my mind that would weigh me down.
Until a year later, when my friend made me realize that I didn’t have a reason to be afraid, because box jumps honestly weren’t that hard.

Though I realize not everyone has a friend like mine.
So I should’ve known to help others who needed help solving the constellations in their minds.
But I didn’t, because I’m a stargazer, who studies the stars, keeping his thoughts in his mind.
So these past months I’ve seen pictures painted of the most tragic star in my life.

In June of 2018 there would be the combustion of a supernova that would shake the entire universe so violently you’d swear you could feel it coming half a year in advance.
And that’s because you could feel it, like the first snowflake of a snowstorm my friend would post thoughts online in hope someone would warm him in the winter cold.
But the people were silent, ignorance gave them warmth in the form of winter hats and winter coats, they weren’t bothered by the cold, they let the upcoming events unfold.
So when my friend realized that he was alone in the storm, he held onto his dreams, but one can only hold on for so long until the longing to make a necklace of constellations like that of gold grows too strong.
And so the supernova exploded, the constellations were molded.
The people screamed as if they could just finally see it, as if there had been a 6 month eclipse blinding their eyes with ignorance as his life folded.
But nothing could be done, no amount of apologies or sorrow could turn back time now.
So the people did what the could by bandaging their own traumatized eyes.

But first, there was the pain.
Not the pain you see every other day but the kind that makes a whole people weep on their knees.
The kind of pain you feel when there is nothing left for you in life and your countless hopeless dreams are now forever accounted as that, for it’s all they will ever be.
But how much pain could there really be, For the person who held the most pain of them all was already set free?

Then came the cavalry.
Men marching on their horses, filling the village with empathy and sympathy, mending the cracked minds, shattered lives, and ruined dreams.
They went door to door and while not all accepted their charities they indiscriminately gave it up like candy to goblins on Halloween.
But how could they not see, the one life they had been sent to save had long ago been set free?

And so I cry.
An undeserving goblin with a telescope used to examine the explosion from a safe distance like the good stargazer I was.
It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized I could’ve stopped the comet that cut the star’s life short, leaving me with haunting memories of him telling me “I’m fine.”
Now able to read the language of the stars I realize, his eyes were filled with constellations screaming, “I feel like I want to die.”
Written by
Michael Higgins
237
 
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