I was scared, that night; breathing heavily. I have vivid memories of the nightmare. I told her, they were going to get me. She smiled and picked me up. She told me I was not alone and took me to introduce me to some people. She said, “They don’t talk.” Confused and still scared, I gripped her fingers tight. Carrying me up a flight of stairs didn’t seem too hard for her, I wondered why. Once we reached where we had to, she pointed up towards the sky. She said, “You see those diamonds up there? Remember, nothing can get you as long as they’re there. They don’t talk, but they’ll listen. Whenever you’re scared, talk to them, they don’t have a language but they understand yours.” It drove the fear away in that moment. Little did the little me know, that she was creating a confidant for me. The stars? No, not the confidant I’m talking about. Yeah, we did watch the stars together, but the stars weren’t my confidant. Back then, I thought they were but now I know they weren’t, it was somehow a memory attached to the stars, a memory of her, my mother, a memory of the night, where my mother and I, fought the monsters in my head together. I still talk to the stars when I’m low, or when I’m scared. I talk to them, even when I’m not saying a word. It feels like I’m talking to her, even when we’re miles apart. It’s like she taught me a language that has no scripture, no sound. She taught me something beautiful; she taught me a language of unspoken words.
Cigarettes and ashes. 