Work Text:
If I were to tell you that stars are lonely, would you believe me?
Think about it. The sun is over ninety million miles away. Even traveling at 186,000 miles per second, it still takes eight minutes for light to reach the earth. If you could move that fast, an hour-long run would take you around the earth nearly 85,000 times. You could be friends with everyone.
But stars cannot have friends. They cannot even touch.
Even though the stars are so fast, they are still lonely.
Stars cannot touch each other. They are separated by this impenetrable blackness, averaging one to three billion miles wide. Even the closest are still over 900 million miles apart.
Stars cannot touch. Although some stars do, despite the distance, despite all reason, decide to do so.
That is when they realize that it was better to keep their distance.
When stars touch, they either form a bigger, brighter star, or they disappear as though they never existed.
Either way, they are destroyed.
Either way, they hurt each other.
Stars are lonely.
They can not touch.
I think people are stars.
Think about it. Every person has a shadow in their soul where they keep their bad thoughts, their secrets. This is where the things we would never tell anyone, not in a billion years, are.
These are our Darkness.
And we do not share our Darkness.
Why?
Because we know that no one would be able to understand everything that our Darkness creates inside us. Even though everyone has Darkness, no one can quite understand anyone else’s.
Darkness is personal.
It is like when you are a kid. You have a nightmare and cannot get back to sleep. Your parents tell you that it is okay, that it is not real, that it is just your imagination. But you know that is not true. You know that even if it is made up, it is still real.
Just like parents do not quite understand their kid's nightmares, others cannot understand the Darkness inside you.
That is how it keeps us apart.
Everyone has this Darkness that divides them from others. Some try to find a way to get through the Dark and touch each other's souls. But stars cannot touch without being destroyed. And neither can people.
The Darkness that divides the stars divides people too.
You might think “But what about marriage? Those people love each other.”
Have you ever met a married couple who has never felt hurt by the other?
Stars hurt other stars; people hurt other people.
That is how it works.
Some stars think that the pain is worth it. They decide that they will endure the pain in order to stay together, in order to be a part of a bigger whole.
People think that too. People form friendships and marriages and alliances. But they always end up hurt. It is unavoidable.
Sometimes the stars wonder, “Wouldn't it have been better to save myself this pain?” And sometimes people wonder that too.
I think they are right.
It would have been better to stay away. To save yourself. To never experience the pain. That is better.
It is.
Some people just do not discover that until it is too late.
My parents got divorced. I don’t blame them for that. I think that they did the right thing, ending the pain.
They are two of the people who discovered the truth too late. They tried to touch each other’s souls and found that it hurt. Their Darkness hurt. But they didn’t know until it was too late.
Darkness is always there. It keeps stars and people apart. That is its nature. Darkness hurts; it destroys.
I live, now, with my mom. My brother lives with my dad. I haven’t seen my brother or my dad for over a year. They have called, but I don’t know what to say to them. I just listen while they talk.
I miss my brother, even though I know I shouldn’t.
He has a Darkness too.
And his Darkness hurt.
Once, in a fit of anger, in a fit of Darkness, my brother told me that it was my fault that mom and dad divorced. He said that they were happy before I was born. I don’t know how he knows that. He was only five when I was born.
But I guess it’s easier to blame me than to accept that mom and dad were always going to hurt each other. Even though that is how it works. That is how it always works.
Darkness hurts; it destroys.
That was the only time I have ever seen his Darkness clearly.
I do not like Darkness.
I don’t like his Darkness.
But somehow, even though I know he has Darkness, I still miss him. Even though I know it hurts. Even though I know the truth.
Do you believe me now when I tell you that stars are lonely?
People are lonely too.
If stars are lonely, and people are stars, then people are lonely. That is how it works. That’s how it always works.
Even though stars are
so fast, they are still--
Wait...
...I’m a person.