The Sun Is Also a Star

by Nicola Yoon

Names are powerful things. They act as an identity marker and a kind of map, locating you in time and geography. More than that, they can be a compass.

That, though your earthly life may be hard, there’s a better place in your future, and God has a plan to get you there. That all the things that have happened to him, even the bad, have happened for a reason.

But how can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins?

no one can put a price on losing everything. And another thing: all your

future histories can be destroyed in a single moment.

I DON’T THINK I’VE EVER noticed anyone the way I’m noticing her. Sunlight filters through her hair, making it look like a kind of halo around her head. A thousand emotions pass over her face. Her eyes are black and wide, with long lashes. I can imagine staring into them for a long time.

It’s like knowing all the words to a song but still finding them beautiful and surprising.

There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with

them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.

If people who were actually born here had to prove they were worthy enough to live in America, this would be a much less populated country.

Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself.

“Sure, but why not more poems about the sun? The sun is also a star, and it’s our most important one. That alone should be worth a poem or two.”

Then I’m going to watch you get on a plane and feel my heart get ripped out of my fucking chest, and then I’m going to wonder for the rest of my life what could’ve happened if this day hadn’t gone just exactly the way it’s gone.”