the stars in disarray

By Megumi Jindo

When you meet someone over a writing platform and fate encourages you to share your socials to get closer, the relationship does not become as fruitful as you want it to be.

i don't know anymore—

was the fact that we both knew who we were
in vain, or was it for the better?

did it harm “us” or
did it cleanse us?

nowadays, 
when i talk to you—

you seem different
    
or maybe it’s just me
and that we were just different from the beginning—
not meant to be—

you know?

i thought finding and sharing the reality of our lives
would help us bond or something but 
                                                  	  i think it made us worse.

i think we’ve drifted apart from the ship 
that should have set sail but never did.

i think God or fate or the stars, 
just led us astray.

and i know

if i was different,
if life was different,
if we were different,

we could have been the stars.
we could have been the infinite.
we could have been the forever without the end.

but we're not.

and all i’m left with is the ticking of sand—
                                                           
            as i know, 
                            somewhere in there,
                                                           we could have been we are.

so the glass shatters,
as i touch it—
ever so innocently and quietly with the brush of my 
pale, delicate forefinger—

              	  and the us, becomes the end.

Process

My inspiration for this piece came to me when I was using a writing platform and another girl and I started to comment on each other’s work. There was this one point where she reached out and asked about sharing our contacts if I felt up to it. And so I said yes, thinking that this would help sprout whatever friendship we were already starting to have through writing. At first, it was kind of awkward, and then it was okay and then the conversation just didn’t flow. Now, we don’t really speak much or interact. I felt like “finding and sharing the reality of our lives” would help us bond but it didn’t, really, though it seemed like it at first. It felt as though it made us drift, I really wished that we could have been something more, and that’s where my inspiration came from.