Fragments of Dying Stars

Alive in the digital void, I am chaos incarnate—fire, comet, and apocalypse.

[echoesofdyingstars]

My Tiny Tornado

Legos jammed in the fridge, socks glued to the ceiling, He spins in circles, milk sloshing, carton top peeling. Cold nuggets scatter, animals form battle lines, He tips the cup, floods floors, puddles climb vines.

Bath explodes; hair resists, towels launch, fly, Water invades the hallway, puddles stretch, puddles pry. Corners cradle monsters, alarms shriek, walls shake, He rockets past shadows, trucks dive, books quake.

The bed trembles under pillow avalanches, Pajama scraps fly, snack crumbs storm branches. I mop, socks soaked, eyes dart, pulse races, Apartment hums, vibrates, survives tiny chaos traces.

Tomorrow, tornado lands, spinning, spinning back, Socks, trucks, animals surge, reclaim every track.

[echoesofdyingstars]

Grey Crawl

I learned death from ceilings and the drip of water at night. Counting breaths as if they might run mid-word.

Seventeen shattered like glass. A pause people clap at while my hands tore at edges that didn’t exist.

I left school at fifteen. Empty list. Lockers cleared. Name stuck to walls only to slide off.

Days stretch like poured concrete. Voice ricochets in hollow rooms. Walls bend. Mirrors fracture under light.

Photos char in my pockets. Light drains through cracks, grey crawling under doors, into skin, into joints.

Eyes sting. The room crushes down. Nothing moves. Nothing answers.

[echoesofdyingstars]

When Sleep Forgets to Lock the Door

Sleep seals rooms. Mine leaves hinges loose.

Above me, the ceiling lists, counts itself in dry clicks, a metronome with no mercy. Light leaks under a door that refuses to stay shut.

The house shifts weight. Floorboards log me like a record dragged from storage. Time stutters the clock stalls, won’t commit.

My name arrives without sound, pressed into plaster, threaded behind the eyes, latched in a lock that learned me early.

Noise fails. The mouth fills with fiber, packed tight with rules set into bone.

The body goes rigid. The drill resumes. Freeze. Fold inward. Confuse stillness with rest.

I break the surface shaking, pulse hammering ahead, hands burning as if they carried a load through the dark and never released it.

Morning puts on a blank face. That’s the lie it tells.

The nightmare doesn’t chase. It settles. Dust with weight. Waiting for the mind to power down and drop its guard.

[echoesofdyingstars]

Drip of Days

Bad days don’t explode. They drip. Rust water through the ceiling straight into my mouth.

My body hums like live wire sleep jammed, joints bolted shut, pulse stuttering against bone.

Doors snag. Screens freeze. Keys vanish mid-motion. Each small failure stacks bricks on my chest and calls itself coincidence.

I nod when people preach sunrise. They don’t hear the lock click. They don’t feel the room shrink around my ribs.

I carry weight not built for me. School fires its engines. Time shoves. I move anyway, sparks scraping the ground.

I’m not dramatic. I’m depleted. Still standing because collapse demands more fuel than I own.

[echoesofdyingstars]

The Shape I Made for Staying

Let it take me whole jaw-first, no warning.

Pressure crowds my skull, a drumline behind bone, looking for daylight.

You bloom in June. I shoulder April home keys biting skin, the door refusing ceremony.

Steam erases the mirror. Water strikes my spine. Cold stays longer than it should.

Pigment streaks my hair, loud against time’s circling mouth. Age sniffs close. I don’t look away.

I leave space for damage. Walls remember where I leaned.

Something moves the treeline low muscle, quiet hunger.

I don’t run. Blood answers first.

Stillness earns another bite.

[echoesofdyingstars]

Reduced to Edges

The day cracks open. Light hammers lungs until breath splinters. Heads snap back, bones grinding under skin, people laughing like gravity missed them.

I carry pressure in my chest that bites, bruises, crushes ribs inward until my body densifies, muscle shuddering, wood splintering under load.

Night bears down on my spine. I sit on the floor, hands rasping concrete, watching shadows scale broken chairs as dark sets its teeth into my back.

My body drags through air, nails raking the world raw. Footsteps score scars into every surface I cross.

Breath rips through ribs, air tearing space apart. The world swallows pieces, spits them back cold. I stand reduced to edges, weight compressing every inch, until hollow is all that holds.

[echoesofdyingstars]

Ribs

This isn’t a decision. It’s pressure in the ribs, lungs counting how much air they’re allowed.

One life is history. Nine years sunk into muscle. A child. A language built in dark kitchens, slammed doors, wet streets love held together by habit and refusal to let go. Best friendship braided with damage. Pain so familiar it knows the way back without asking.

The bond is physical. Not chosen. Something the body remembers even when the mind resists. Illness tightening the knot. Time keeping it tied. Leaving would rip skin. Staying wears bone thin.

The other life moves softer. Care without noise. No proof required in blood. A steady mirror in the hand, not fire pressed too close to the face. The kind of care imagined once, before survival taught different rules.

That softness pulls hard. I want it. I’m afraid of the weight of it. Need leaning too far. Ground asking for ground. Distance and reach missing each other by a breath, by inches of air.

This isn’t a triangle. It’s a split.

One side is voltage, memory, survival a storm already mapped. The other is warmth without chaos, and the risk of becoming someone who doesn’t need armor.

Fear lives everywhere. Fear of choosing pain because it’s known. Fear of choosing quiet and finding out how much of me was built to endure.

No one teaches you how to leave what raised you. No one teaches you how to accept care without bracing for impact.

There’s no ending here. Just exposure. Just holding still long enough to feel the pulse.

[echoesofdyingstars]

Cheap Whiskey, Quiet Chest

The room smells like cheap whiskey and lemon cleaner, that bitter-bright mix that lives in dive bars and kitchens at midnight. Old wood. Warm glass. A hint of smoke stuck in my jacket from a place I didn’t even like.

Ice clicks in the cup that small, nervous sound, like it’s thinking before it breaks. The fridge hums behind me, steady, loyal, doing its job without asking how I’m doing.

My phone face-down on the table, screen dark, finally quiet. A chipped mug holding pens I don’t use anymore. Keys hanging on the wall like they gave up.

The bottle sweats onto the desk leaving little rings proof something stood here long enough to matter. My thumb traces the label, paper peeling at the edge, same way I do when I’m trying not to think.

The burn smells sweet and sharp, oak and sugar and regret that’s gone stale. It hits and my shoulders drop. Not collapse just lower.

A car passes outside, bass rattling the windows. Somebody laughs down the block, a sound that doesn’t belong to me but doesn’t hurt either.

I’m drunk. The room tilts like it’s curious, not cruel. The clock ticks louder than my thoughts now.

For once, my chest is quiet. No sirens. No rehearsed apologies. Just the smell of alcohol on my breath and the steady weight of my body in the chair, still here, still okay, listening to the ice finish what it started.

[echoesofdyingstars]

Absence of Collapse

My body learned the language first before the mouth, before the promises. It learned it in flinches, in the way a door clicks shut without being locked, in the buzz of bad wiring behind the ribs that never quite blows.

It still knows. I just stopped asking it questions.

I speak less now. Shorter sentences. I let cups sweat onto the table and don’t wipe the rings away. I nod where I used to argue. I let the hum run its course. It’s easier to live inside the pause than keep translating the noise.

If I whisper, I’m fine. If I scream, I’m dramatic. So I say nothing and call the quiet peace. Almost counts. Most days.

There were nights I held my wrists up to the stars, asking them to keep score count the wounds I gave myself against the empty chairs, the coats that never came back. Now I do the math internally. Quiet damage. Private. Nothing worth interrupting the night for.

They say love is built. Brick. Hand. Repetition. I keep the structure. I stop inspecting the cracks. Every house settles eventually. That’s what they say when the walls start breathing.

My body flinches, then corrects itself like a hand pulled back from a hot stove and placed calmly on the counter instead. Like it remembers the rules.

I mistook the absence of collapse for stability.

I don’t run. I don’t reach either. I stand where I am, feet on cold tile, listening to the refrigerator kick on and off, letting the ground decide how much it will hold.

Sometimes I miss the urgency rain in my hair, liquor on my tongue, the sharp relief of knowing exactly what was hurting me. But knowing costs. This costs less.

So I stay functional. I stay composed. I stay.

And whatever this is it doesn’t need a name as long as it doesn’t ask anything more from me.

[echoesofdyingstars]

Metal Hours

I lock my mouth My body handles it

Pain makes the call the clock answers metal ticking against bone no blink

I move like a split cup water shaking in glass one controlled tip from noise

At nights, my chest runs loud wet breath rusted air counting

Morning drops me on the floor knees first cold grit gravity closing in

I wear a smile like gloves thin latex powdered for bite

No arc

Just standing then breathe then fall

a small sound kept

[echoesofdyingstars]

Domestic Weather

Morning scrapes metal across the sink. The coffee maker coughs steam through rusted lungs.

Rain needling the windows.

A backpack slumps by the door, Velcro ripped open. Paper dinosaurs bent in the pocket like small extinct bones.

The house smells like cold cereal and stale sleep.

I asked for sleep.

Just sleep one thin slice of morning where my bones didn’t brace the roof.

The room fills with verdicts.

You say the woman wakes the house. You say it like law.

Like a factory bell wired to my ribs.

When I say no the air tightens.

Morals load the chamber. Politics sharpen into knives. History drags a chair to the table.

Years scatter across the counter like broken glass.

Old damage still breathing in your mouth.

Time doesn’t heal.

It seals damage like insects in amber.

The floorboards creak.

Bills bloom across the counter like white flags.

A textbook gapes open, yellow highlighter bleeding through the page.

The clock grinds another minute.

Then the accusations

The blade returns.

A shift in my breathing turns the room toward me.

Distance casts a shadow You track across the floor.

something must be wrong with me something must be hiding in the way I breathe

But listen the house follows the script.

Rain on the windows. Cabinets still. Floorboards listening. The clock grinding through seconds.

We stand there with the morning between us.

And the rain keeps coming like it does before the glass goes.

[echoesofdyingstars]

holdfast

there is a way I’ve learned to exist where nothing spills over everything measured everything held everything just steady enough to keep from breaking

I made a life out of that called it strength called it maturity called it doing what had to be done

but really it was survival with better posture

and then something shifted not loud not enough to point at just enough for me to feel it

I had just started learning I didn’t deserve to be handled carelessly just started believing I didn’t have to hold everything together to be treated right

and then it felt like finally knowing my worth and it still wasn’t enough

so now I’m standing here not trying to be perfect just trying to see if this holds when I don’t

[echoesofdyingstars]

no record

there’s a split right after

everything cuts hard stop a dead space

like my mind kills the power mid-impact

your voice leaves a mark i carry it locked under my ribs tight buried alive

i reach in nothing

no sentence no trace no witness

just pressure just imprint

and it turns inward

was it him or did i shape it

that question digs hooks in refuses release

my body stalls seized in place

i stand there empty-handed like the evidence stripped

so i don’t move

because what do you call an injury with no record no language no source

just damage

and a voice that circles tight closer

you did this

[echoesofdyingstars]

verdict

she said it without raising her voice and it landed anyway

thin as paper sharp as it needed to be

mornings don’t open they press

light leaks through the blinds like it’s forcing its way in and I lie there counting seconds like they owe me something

my body doesn’t argue it just doesn’t move

I’ve learned to carry weight without naming it

to move through rooms half-present half elsewhere

to answer when spoken to to nod at the right time

to pass

distance plays tricks

what’s close refuses the hand

what’s mine stays just out of reach like it’s testing me

I stopped explaining

now I measure progress in smaller things

feet on the floor door unlocked name still on the list

there’s a strength that doesn’t ask to be seen

it holds

through the drag through the doubt through the quiet that tries to close in

and it stays

long enough to finish

[echoesofdyingstars]

Dry Wells and Dead Ends

Tonight tastes like copper like bitten tongue like pennies pressed hard between my teeth while I swallow panic and call it silence

The air smells like dust, old bills sweat dried into borrowed blankets like fear has its own odor sharp as overdue notices stale as shut windows

I hear everything The clock chewing through seconds My stomach folding in on itself Neighbors laughing somewhere beyond this grief while tomorrow pounds its eviction hymn through the walls

My hands know too much the rough edge of empty pockets the paper-cut sting of final notices the cold skin of doorknobs that suddenly feel like goodbye

I see shadows stretch longer than hope streetlights fractured through blinds like prison bars my life reduced to what can be carried if morning shows no mercy

My throat burns with unsaid pleas My skin wears exhaustion like soaked clothing Even breathing feels borrowed like the night itself could send me back

And still I lie here tasting survival bitter, raw, unfinished listening to my own heart refuse to pack its bags

[echoesofdyingstars]

Cleanup on Aisle Five

I dream I am standing in a grocery store at three in the morning

holding a basket with nothing in it

except a crushed carton of strawberries

leaking sticky red through the wires onto my hands

The lights flicker hard enough

to make everybody look feverish

everything hums

Freezers. Fluorescents. My pulse

The air smells like bleach, overripe fruit

and rain dragged in from outside

A cashier chews watermelong gum behind the register

without ever looking up

pop music crackles sfotly through the speakers warped and distant

like it's playing underwater

Somewhere nearby, a baby is crying

sharp, exhausted cries that scrape against my skin

I keep circling the same aisles

because I know I forgot something important

not milk

not bread

something alive

My hoodie sleeves cling damp against my wrists

The cold from the freezer section bites through my jeans

I taste metal at the back of my tongue

the way I do after crying too hard

And I cannot stop checking my phone

No messages

Still, I check again

Then I see him

Not fully

Just the sleeve of a dark hoodie

slipping around the corner of aisle seven

I follow without thinking

My shoes squeak against the tile loud enough

to sound embarrassing, desperate

The strawberries shift in the basket, soft and collapsing

When I turn the corner

it is only a mirror

And God, I look exhausted

Mascara smeared under my eyes

Lips split from biting them

Hnads clenched so tightly around the basket handle

my fingers ache

The kind of tired

that settles into your body like cigarette smoke in curtains

I open my mouth to speak

but all I taste is pennies

Copper. Blood

All the things I never said sitting bitter on my tongue

Over the intercom, a woman calmly repeats:

cleanup on aisle five

cleanup on aisle five

Like grief is just another spill

someone forgot to wipe up before morning

I leave the basket behind

and walk into the employee hallway

The lights buzz above me like trapped hornets

The carpet changes beneath my feet

tile becoming the rough old carpet from my childhood bedroom

Every door I open

Leads back there

Same pale walls

Same stale heat

Same air thick with laundry detergent, dust

and the faint smell of somebody else's anger

But the room is underwater now

Clothes drift slowly near the ceiling

My blankets wrap around my legs like seaweed

The silence presses so hard against my ears

It almost becomes sound

My phone vibrates violently in my pocket

One message

I try opening it too fast and crack the screen wider

Glass bites into my thumb

The light spills through my fingers anyway, pale blue and shaking

Then comes the knocking

Three slow taps at the bedroom door

I can hear my heartbeat in my throat

Taste fear sharp as mouthwash

Smell rain and cigarette smoke seeping from the hallway outside

I already know opening the door will ruin me somehow

Not loudly

Not enough for anyone else to notice

Just another fracture hidden under skin

But I open it anyway

And there is nobody there

Only cold summer air brushing against my face

wet dirt

distant thunder

and that strange green sky outside

right before a tornado tears everything apart

[echoesofdyingstars]

The Girl I Could Have Been

I meet her in a grocery store that doesn't sell food; only memories sealed in plastic wrap.

She looks like me, but softer around the edges.

Like she never had to learn how to harden.

She asks if I'm happy.

I don't answer fast enough.

The lights flicker like they're embarrassed for me.

I want to tell her the truth; that happiness isn't the right word anymore, that I learned other languages for surviving.

But instead I just look at her hands.

They're clean.

Mine aren't.

We stand there like two timelines refusing to shake hands.

Then I wake up.