Drowning Stars

• Natasha Ho, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2018

You played me like a game of thrones, the light shatters into pieces of glass, drowned in bleach, paled and colourless till nothing but white. Your clouds cover me, all I see is your back that shadows into nothing, dark and plain.
P.S ‘I love you’
All the deceased lies are just a way to make a star smile, there’s more than one… millions and you’re the cloud that rains below me, you used to stay to make sure I was shining, but now I’m a dull unwanted star, puffy from drowning.
His stars disappear into revealing pitch black, without lavenders and bluebells, no bumble bees and pollen to keep them alive. No clock to stop time from turning one way or another. All appears inside a single star, exploding into the universe to create wonders of life. He takes life with sharp woods, the woods that wreck and sink a ship boarded with light, the stars hold brightness. Shading over with darkness parted to set nothing except black skies.
‘You used to look at me the way you look at her, you say no to me but yes to her.’
The traces of ‘I heart U’ against the palm of a leaf, becomes hard cold plastic, melted and reused over and over again. I may not know the murderous dark horse that races through nightmares, but I know the bitter dark chocolate you hide inside, the overly sweetness of white I bury, stops and thinks… It’s too late, the milk chocolate has melted and disintegrated, nor sweet or smooth, burnt to the thinness of crisp.
As the last breath of a gunshot blows away, the dark cherry chocolate drips into the rocky dirt, never to be tasted again after the rain.
He whispers, ‘I’m not worth it’.
The future is a stone with letters of ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you’, thankful for the experiences and the warnings of never tripping over again, jumping off a cliff for storms.
‘Love conquers you, only you can change it’, the beaming iridescence from the moon is wise like an owl, rescuing trapped and dulled stars, the ones who no longer have the power to stand. The moon enables light within us, elements of growth and experience to make us who we are, individual stars that shine within ourselves, differing from others.
As I open the letter, a speck of glitter drops revealing…
‘Dear one,
We can only control our feelings and behaviors, making choices that have either good or not so good consequences.
We can keep attracting the same, or learn the lesson and move on.
Keep being your true authentic self, chase it back and love it.’
P.S. ‘I love me’