A Dead Star

Hey 🪐

It has been five years since the last time I saw you within my orbit, you were in one of your lowest, we sort of joked about the Earthlings kicking you out from the planet list because they just mistaken you as a giant moon who's too far from the sun you can no longer reflect its light, because it felt dark. But for me back then, you were glowing, an illuminance so beautiful mankind might have to list you as a sun instead. You shrugged it off, of course, and you used your giant ring as a shield. I regretted not telling you that more often, because I was afraid it has something to do with me, and the fact that we only talked in my nights and your dawns — maybe I'm the moon who eclipsed the sun from you, who knows?

I know now, though. And it hit me hard. Because you're shining now, brighter than ever, standing tall and so proud that someone has managed to land on your surface and make a permanent stay. And I should be happy for you, celebrate the flag which pole has now plucked between your pores. Instead, I mourn. Because I failed to do just that, because somewhere between those pillow talks, I think I somehow made you think that my visit would be an invasion of your space instead. And just like that, the engine of my rocket died before it could even launch. 

I kept on revisiting the memories, trying to pin-point where I got it wrong, and which turn that caused you to stir away from me. Because for me it felt right — the firework explosions, the calmness that followed, the gentle whispers that spread the fire embers, warming the nights. I still sought for the exact feelings, you know? Every other planet I passed, I waited, for them to give me something that is close to how you made me feel. One managed to pull me in with their gravity, but the landscape isn't as pretty, and there are too many oceans that I ended up staying in one of their small islands with no one in contact for miles, hidden away from the world. I feel eclipsed. Dark. Cold. Too far from the sun.

Did you feel this way toward me too? That's why you shut the doors so tight that my voice could not get through? Was it that obvious for you that I was the reason for the lasting darkness? Is this how I am supposed to tell myself that, "Yeah, I better move on now, it's time to leave"?

People said that with every broken heart, you got one more stranger to live in this universe carrying your secrets. I have so many heart-breaking cases, but I don't think anyone carries more of my secrets than you do. Perhaps that's why it hurts more? Because, what? You know my favorite colors, and my favorite drinks, and how my alarms don't ring in times I should wake up that you had to chime in?

I want to know your story, you once said. I want to know what you felt when you wrote these beautiful pieces. Well, I'm telling you now, I feel lonely as I write this, and hurtful because times tick for some people and I'm left in this island, hidden and frozen. Because everyone finds their source of warmth but me. I feel you, now a blinking dot in my sky, who'd not fall again, erasing the opportunity for me to make yet another wish.

But I'll pray, the way you made me do in one of those quarters of nights we spent together, for you to shine through, and for maybe, one day, the same kind of light to hit me too, so I could be one of the many dots in your sky, so you'd get to remember me, as the second star to left, a Neverland you once got stuck in but managed to escape.