life as poems 'n letters

There was a time when he lived by the stars.

They were his guide, his certainty. They told him where to go, what to chase, what mattered. Success, ambition, purpose—these were the constellations he followed. He didn’t question it—he just went. He thought, it would all make sense in the end.

For years, he made himself busy. He didn’t need to pause and wonder why—he just knew that ahead was the the only direction to move.

But one day, the stars starts to slowly dim its light.

Initially, he believed it was merely a transient storm. That if he held out long enough, if he kept his head down and forged ahead, the sky would brighten and he would see. But the darkness lingered. The things that used to excite him—money, status, women—now felt empty. The things that used to drive him no longer burned within him. But he kept going, figuring that if he just continued to do more, the feeling would eventually pass.

And gradually, something within him also faded.

He attempted to outrun the void for a while. He spent his days surrounded by noise, his nights consumed by distractions. He scrolled endlessly, drank excessively, allowed time to pass him by as he searched for something—anything—to make him alive once more.

But it didn’t.

He looked up one day and found the stars were gone.

The route that he had mapped out for so long no longer existed. What he was always running after no longer worth anything. And, most tragically, he didn’t even remember why he was running.

He stopped.

Not because he wished to, but because he could no longer continue. His head was weighed down by things he couldn’t make right, by mistakes he couldn’t erase. He remembered the people he had wronged, the vows he had broken—not just to others, but to himself.

And in that quiet, he wondered if perhaps he wasn’t supposed to continue after all.

He allowed himself to sink for a time. He drowned out the silence with distraction—drinking, scrolling, anything to keep his mind from questions he had no answers for. He watched the world spin by around him, but he couldn’t find it in himself to join in.

Then, somewhere in the middle of all that nothingness, there was light.

Not the sort he had been looking for—not the stars he had misplaced—but something altogether nearer, smaller. A lantern, unwavering and warm, being held by a person who was not attempting to mend him, was not trying to shove him, but simply remained.

The lantern made him remember something he had long forgotten—how it felt to be looked at, not for what he was capable of doing, not for what he could not do, but for who he was.

But the light didn’t remain forever.

Lanterns are not meant to be held for so long. They are only to remind you that there is still light, though you cannot yet see it.

Now he is at a crossroads. He is aware that he cannot remain where he is. He can let the darkness claim him, let the burden of it all keep him where it left him. Or he can go forward—without the map, without the stars, without knowledge—but with the silent hope that perhaps, possibly, he isn’t lost for good.

He doesn’t know yet which road he will choose.

But for the first time in a long time, he entertains the idea that the stars were never his guide to start with.

Perhaps he was destined to become one.