Stars

                              Jacob Clark

                              5/26/15

Ah to look above at the night sky and see the first lonesome star in the sky is supposed to grant me any wish of my choice. But when I watch the other stars start to gather around it and begin filling the darkness above, it always makes me feel like that first star is all alone in the world for a while. But if that star is anything like me, then I am sure it feels alone even after all the other stars come out. Maybe we aren’t that different from stars, or maybe we are all the same. Is it crazy to think that maybe the stars look up in the sky and see us as little dots in the sky? I sometimes get the thought that if there is just one star out there like me, maybe it has the same little white lines up its arms like me. It would feel alone all the time, and even when the sun shines its brightest, it would be left with darkness and emptiness all around.

 

                I wonder if those stars ever lose their mothers to heroin overdoses or friends to suicide. Have any stars had their father leave when they were born and been abused by their step-father most of their lives? Maybe stars even struggle with the same depression, anxieties, addictions, emotions, and memories that tear me apart when I am surrounded by darkness and emptiness. It seems impossible that anyone else could have been through all the things I have been through, but I sometimes think, “What if that star right there has been through the same things as me and is looking at me now with the same thoughts I have in my head.”

 

                Sometimes the demons in my mind become so overwhelming that my head feels like it will explode and unleash all its hell upon the world, and the only reason I keep myself together is because I wouldn’t wish this hell or its demons on my worst enemy, much less the whole world. So many people see me as such an inspiration to them to keep moving forward and that change is possible, but the truth is, I change to make life a little more bearable. Once you get to hell, there’s no coming back. The thoughts still tear me apart, memories still haunt me every time I close my eyes, and the nightmares are always there to remind me that the past is real. Sometimes it seems like these things are almost too real to be real and that my entire life is a dream I am having as a little kid, cuddled up next to my mom on the old rocking chair we used to have so long ago. But this is real, and that dream is a nightmare. I will never wake up cuddled next to my mom again, but I see her face every night I go to sleep.

 

                Are there any stars out there that feel the same way as me? It seems impossible to fathom something so far away but so like us, but it could be true. Maybe someday I’ll even get to meet that star and we can exchange stories and fears and thoughts. I could stay up in the sky for a few days and see how much like us those distant stars are, and when I have to leave I would ask him to shine a little brighter when he looks into his sky above and I will do the same. Then we will both know that somewhere, somehow, everything will be ok. Maybe we will never get to see it, but someday, everything will be alright, and none of us will ever have to be alone in the darkness again…