at night…in the shapes in the sand

words by Hannah Shen and Sarayu Kurra

at night, I look up to the scattered sky and I think to myself:

we are the children of stars long forgotten to time,

the descendants of supernovae.

        the iron atoms that flow

             freely in our blood,

the very iron atoms that lend breath        to life,

were once the death knells of our celestial forebearers.

what remains of those dark corpses, but the inevitable—

      the inescapable—

      depths of a black hole, left

behind, yet

invisible

to all who long to gaze upon it?

entropy dictates this world— every single process, every single action

occurs to increase disorder.

how fascinating a concept,

that the only mandate with an iron

grip on the universe

        is the one driving every thing to its cold,

   desolated

isolation.

Chaos reigns supreme, and 

we are but His loyal agents

   (a descriptor all too apt, I feel, in

times like these.)

truly, what say     have we

      in what we are?

           a reconstitution of atoms, scattered

unfathomable eons ago and only joined

together by a mere stroke of serendipity?

have we no say in what we become?

a vast scattering of atoms, reconstituted

in unfathomable eons more into

the constellations of the void of space?

what will remember us?

we, humans, who have never shone so brightly

        as the stars that birthed us.

we, humanity, an insurmountable speck of dust

in the frigid cosmos that holds us to no regard.

     Yet, somehow, we are capable of love that brings

      more warmth than any star ever could.

Somehow, against all probabilistic odds,

we are the exact configuration of matter

such that we laugh and we despair.

        As much as we find guidance and solace in the night sky,

we marvel at the dawn of a new day.

We, a patchwork quilt of lived experiences,

of stories told and memories passed down generation

           after generation;

 we, the kin of this very universe we inhabit,

bear witness with our lives.

   How beautiful that is.

     At night, I look to the star-speckled sky and I say:

I remember you

in the shapes in the sand

I could see it in the breeze.

I could smell it in the coast.

the waves ebbed and flowed to the ocean’s natural rhythm: steady, yet filled with moments of intense cacophony. I made My way to the streak of white dissonance where water met land, the ocean glimmering mockingly against the dull rocks of the coast, shaping it to fit its desires. the bright sun fought to keep its hazy circle against the bright sky.  I turned My back from the landscape of blue to finally face the lens. 

click

“got it!”

she stood before Me, beaming with a fragile confidence. one that could disappear within seconds depending on the next sentence that left My pursed lips.

“hmm…”

her smile wavered, losing its structured crescent.

“to be so completely truly honest, I…”

“I….”

the door slammed open and in came my mother, her hair gathered messily on the top of her head and her mouth horizontally held, creasing her freckled cheeks. 

“how many times have i told you not to come in here?! it’s unsafe, sea!”

i looked up at her agitated, my head throbbing from the pressure the dream had released. it was 2 in the morning, the moon bearing the only light i could wield to discern the photograph in my hand. the dust of the attic gripped my nostrils once again, and i found myself back amongst the  shadows of nameless objects lying about. 

except for one. this photograph i found holding onto an imprint so dear. “sea, 2001…”

the dots taunted me, shoving their insults at my fugue.

my mother looked down and drew in a breath. 

“sea, i thought i told you, i don’t know who she is.”

“how? she took the photo, and i… i remember her voice.” my voice came out sharper than i meant it to.

her voice matched mine, “then what does she look like?”

i paused.

“she made you this way, sea - obsessed with the ghost of her, and her only. look at what she’s done to you. look at what’s left.” she motioned to the fog consuming the attic, where each object dissolved into the dust like breath.

she finally replaced the photograph with her hand.

“come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

a shadow of a girl.

haunting the corner of my mind

the shape of her lips defined against the blurred remembrance of her face

chanting:

“got it”

“got it”

“got”

“guard”

“guard it”

I sat up, My breath heavy.

guard it

I rushed out of My room and raced to My mother’s room. it was dark and her breath was steady. My feet moved absently across the silent spots of the wooden planks covering her floor. My hands gripped every drawer handle, My eyes rapidly searching for the photograph that left its mark on My fingertips and a mission on My mind. 

My eyes stared back at me, blue as the water My feet had invaded. but this time, they were shaped like an ultimatum. 

the salty sea air cooled My burning cheeks, while the moon blinded My eyes with tears. I made My way to the coast, ridden with land loss by the greed of the ocean. the rocks scraped at My bare feet, but I could not yield without an answer. 

My answer.

I saw her at the end of the rock, where the streak of white dissonance still lay. she turned, her lips forming that familiar crescent shape. 

“what took you so long?” her voice was soft, opposing the excited cry from her memory. 

“I- I just remembered.” My head was throbbing, and My hands were shaking as I showed her the photograph. 

she glanced at it, and her eyes flicked back to me, gauging My heavy breathing and My unrestful eyes, which were flicking between her and the photograph.

“do you have an answer?”

I sucked in My breath. 

this was it. My family could be free. 

the mind block could be destroyed. the shapes could finally be structured. 

“I choose me.”

her face contorted, as warm tears streaked down My face, battling the now freezing air. 

“who do you see?” I ask.

she squinted “what do i see? it’s a sea.”

“it’s sea.” 

“who’s sea?”

her eyes were blank, only catching the water’s reflection. she could only see waves, as I once did. she could only see what was in front of her, without a story, without an ache, without the memory that chained me.

I looked at the photograph trembling in My hands, its corners worn smooth from years of guarding it. 

guard it. I understood. it was never the picture. it was never her. I had been guarding an absence, a haze, letting it drain the meaning from My own life.

the tides pulled me between us pulled tight, invisible but undeniable. for a moment, I thought it might snap Me back into her orbit. instead, I let it slip.

her crescent smile faltered, blurred, and dissolved into the water. her voice was carried away in the cacophony of the waves. 

“I choose me,” I whispered again, and let the photograph fall into the blue. the blur that once clouded my mind spilled into the bleeding ink of my eyes in the image, dissolving like the horizon where the stars met the sea.

I was free.