The Astronomy of Staying

She was born with an extra room inside her, a locked chamber where unsent prayers gathered dust.



In that room lived a mother-shaped silence, warm as a blanket left on an empty chair, and a father reduced to weather— once summer, now only the memory of light on the walls.



She wanted more.



Not more than the world could give, but more than it seemed willing to authorize.



One uninterrupted embrace. One promise that did not molt into absence. One love that remained after seeing the inventory of her ruins.



Yet she thanked the day for every crumb.



For the birds that rehearsed dawn. For the stubborn machinery of her heart. For the fact that grief, though enormous, could still be folded and carried in the pocket.



She loved as ivy loves stone— with such devotion that she mistook clinging for belonging.



And when people left, they took with them small, unnoticeable bricks,



until one day she discovered that her chest had become a building condemned but still inhabited.



There were nights when death stood at the threshold like a courteous tax collector,



hat in hand, certain that sooner or later the debt would be paid.



She considered opening the door.



She was tired.



Tired of translating her wounds into acceptable conversation. Tired of pretending that surviving was the same as living. Tired of waking as if by clerical mistake.



And still she did not leave.



Not because she feared death, but because four stars were fastened to her darkness.



The first was her eldest brother, a mountain in human form, who stood between her and the storm so naturally he seemed part of the landscape.



The second, the brother nearest to her in age, was a lantern with a storyteller’s voice.



When childhood began to collapse, he held up the ceiling with his words, inventing worlds where monsters could be reasoned with and little sisters survived.



The third was her younger brother, who loved her with the unquestioning faith of a child who believes his favorite person must surely be immortal.



And the fourth was her little sister, a small and steady moon who orbited her as if she were worthy of light.



How could she vanish while they were still calling her name?



How could she become another ghost in a house already crowded with them?



So she remained.



For the mountain. For the lantern. For the devoted star. For the moon.



She remained though her body whispered surrender, though memory arrived in fragments, though the world often felt like a country that had misplaced her passport.



She remained like a cracked vase still holding water.



Like a burnt-out cathedral where one candle refuses to concede to the dark.



For the mountain. For the lantern. For the devoted star. For the moon.



She remained though her body whispered surrender, though memory arrived in fragments, though the world often felt like a country that had misplaced her passport.



She remained like a cracked vase still holding water.



Like a burnt-out cathedral where one candle refuses to concede to the dark.



She was a girl who wanted more.



A girl who had nearly disappeared.



A girl held together by four stars.



And because they shone, however faintly, through the bureaucratic night of grief,



she chose, again and again, to postpone her ending.



To breathe.



To ache.



To love.



To remain.



-VHB