thequietconstellation

[thequietconstellation]

I think a part of me died

when you did

the part that knew how to laugh without aching.

But if you’re somewhere now,

running through fields no one else can see,

I hope I’m there too,

even if only in slivers.

I’d gladly leave behind

a piece of myself

so you would never have to be alone.

Even if it means

I carry this emptiness

in your place.

Because grief,

grief is love

with no place to go.

It builds behind my ribs

like floodwater with no riverbed,

a fullness that feels like breaking.

But it is proof.

Proof that you were here.

Proof that I loved

with everything I had.

And still do.

So I will keep you.

And I will remember you.

For that is love’s second life—

When it is held,

Even in sorrow.

-Your Forever Keeper

Two old pieces I combined and refined for the death anniversary of a loved one. Grief feels heavy for me today.

[thequietconstellation]

The mirror is not a mirror today.

It breathes.

It remembers.

She waits behind the silver,

not quite my reflection

older, younger, undone.

Her mouth does not move,

but I hear her all the same:

“What have you made of me?”

Her voice is fog on glass,

shaped by breath, not sound.

She is made of everything I buried.

She wears my hopes like bruises.

She stares with eyes too wide.

I reach for her.

The glass ripples, then cracks.

My fingers bleed on contact.

She does not flinch.

I do not know who shattered first

the mirror or me.

Shards bloom like petals at my feet.

Each one holds a version of us:

laughing, screaming, hiding, burning.

I pick one up, press it to my cheek.

The cut sings. I listen.

I carve.

Not in rage

But in reverence.

As if I am chiseling a statue

beneath the marble of skin.

Carving out the rot that settled quietly in my hollows,

where joy used to bloom.

She smiles now.

Her smile is cracked, but kind.

Blood trickles from both our mouths

like a shared secret.

The reflection blurs, then sharpens.

And in the jagged glass, she leans forward

smiling, steady, proud.

“There you are,” she whispers.

-The Glass Daughter

[thequietconstellation]

Hope is not a bird.

It does not sing.

It screams.

Through clenched teeth

and a throat raw from silence.

It is not wings and sky.

It is blistered feet,

bleeding on stone roads,

walking anyway.

Hope is not soft.

It is the ache in your spine

when you’ve fallen for the seventh time

and rise for the eighth,

not because you believe in miracles

but because you have to.

Hope is ugly.

It is cracked knuckles,

a mouth too tired for prayer

but whispering anyway.

It is fury and grief braided together

like rope

and you’re using it to pull yourself

from the pit.

Hope is not romantic.

It does not glow.

It drags itself

with dirt in its nails

and a knife between its teeth,

growling,

“not yet.”

-The Shape of Hope

[thequietconstellation]

Sometimes,

I feel I’m floating underwater

muffled voices echo through the deep,

but I can never make them out.

I do not swim. I drift.

The world above me shimmers

just beyond a surface I can’t reach.

How did I get here?

I used to walk on water

light-footed, laughing

but somehow, I sank.

Now, my lungs are full of silence.

My thoughts move slow,

like seaweed in the tide.

I am lost at sea.

Sinking,

further

and

further

down.

If only I could think

could remember

how to swim.

How I ache

for air.

-Abyss of the Mind

[thequietconstellation]

I think my heart still remembers when it belonged to the sky. And that is why I grieve.

[thequietconstellation]

I sat in a meadow today with wildflowers, letting the sun warm my skin. A bee landed on my shoulder, mistaking me for a new bloom. I could not give it pollen nor nectar, yet it stayed with me for awhile, kissing my skin as I stayed still. It was then I realized, the relationship between bees and flowers was love.

[thequietconstellation]

Each time I think I am succumbing to utter ruin, my heart, my darling heart, whispers so softly, in a voice much younger, but wiser than mine,

Consider how the flowers grow, after the rains.

I wish to see these flowers.

So I do not succumb.

What bright meadows they may be.

[thequietconstellation]

With clenched fists, and gritted teeth, I will continue to be soft. I will continue to keep my heart open and my thoughts optimistic.

With tense shoulders, and sweat on my brow, I will continue to have the courage to be vulnerable and kind. I will continue to be gentle and full of hope.

On my knees, crawling, I will remain tender hearted. I will continue onward, full of love.

Despite the cuts on my knees, and the wounds in my heart, despite all of it, I will love, and be open to love.

If not, then what else is there?

[thequietconstellation]

Sometimes, I lose myself. But oh, what a homecoming I have each time I find her again.

How silly of me to forget how lovely I am.

[thequietconstellation]

I hide myself so beautifully. I’ve sewn up all the loose threads and caulked the cracks and glued the pieces together so perfectly that I fool everyone. I show only what I want them to see, the perfectly crafted mask I’ve worked on for years. It hides everything: pain, sadness, rage—so much rage—hurt, and most of all, longing. The terrifying, all consuming desire for someone to see beneath the mask—and to look upon my raw form with soft eyes.

-The Mask

[thequietconstellation]

Who drags me out of sadness most days? My dog. My goody, needy, clingy, dog. Who demands food and to go feel the sun and wants my affection.

And through him, I drag myself up everyday to feed him, to go sit in the sun with him, and to snuggle him.

As I waste away, he brings me a toy, we play, and I finally crack a smile.

Sometimes, all that keeps me going is knowing my dog needs me.

And most of the time, it’s enough.

I keep him alive, and he keeps me alive too.

[thequietconstellation]

I wish to be something more, and it is slowly killing me that I’m not.

[thequietconstellation]

The path to healing is often a lonely one.

[thequietconstellation]

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

[thequietconstellation]

Sometimes all it takes is a little sun on my skin to make life feel worth living again.

[thequietconstellation]

I am so terrified of being abandoned, that I often leave before they have the opportunity to leave me first.

I suppose I’d much rather be holding the knife in my chest than someone else. However, I still bleed the same.

But pain tastes a little sweeter when it comes from your own hands.

-The victim and the executioner

[thequietconstellation]

I don’t go out anymore. I don’t reach out anymore. I never reply.

If I’m invited, I quietly decline, wishing them a fun time.

I shrink away from touch. Compliments do not help me. I’d much rather be alone.

I feel myself shrinking smaller and smaller. I don’t look in the mirror. I’m afraid of what I may see.

I’m so incredibly withdrawn that I don’t even spend time with myself anymore.

I exist, in a small corner of a cage that I locked myself in. I don’t know where I put the key, I must have hid it away. And I sit here, holding my knees, looking out of the iron bars.

It’s too scary to go out there. I’d much rather stay in.

The cage gets smaller, pressing against my skin, but still I won’t come out.

The cage keeps me safe. The cage keeps me safe.

They won’t miss me. I won’t let them. But the cage will. The cage always welcomes me back.

And when I leave the cage, I miss it, too. Even if it’s too small for me sometimes.

-Avoidant, The Cage