The Stars and the Blackness Between Them

by Junauda Petrus

“Life is strange, and it will break you to help you heal ancient wounds, me dahlin’.”

All of us got poetry in us, ’cause our lives are in constant motion and unfolding, and when we observe it and behold it, it becomes poetry.

I protect that young boy’s soul by reminding him he is infinite, like the stars and the blackness between them.

All the old heads will say that there ain’t nothing new under the sun (or moon or stars), which is true in a way. But still your life is new for you. How you deal with something for the first time and the way you feel about it is new and yours and sacred.

“The prettiest voices are kites for the heaviest hearts,” she say.

‘If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched up into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.’”