I never feel enough.

A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it's the most painful thing you'll ever have to do and that you've ever done. But what's yours is yours. Whether it's up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it'll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won't have to put it back in the sky again.

— C. JoyBell C.

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'"She wanted to warm herself," the people said. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen...' The soothing undertones of his voice lingered as he finished the last page of the bedtime story he was reading for the young girl in lying in bed under a warm duvet.

Comfortable from the soft mattress, numb from lying still with restlessness, the young girl looked up upon the young man who had closed the book and returned it to the shelf. Her eyes shut quickly as she noticed him turn around to give her a last glimpse before leaving the room, leaving him to assume nothing of her raging insomnia due to her well-played pretense.

Flipping the light switch just before he walked out of the colourfully-decorated bedroom, the young girl began to slowly open her eyes. Squinting in the dark, she could see nothing. It felt almost as empty as the darkness behind her eyelids. For once, she could not pretend that she was braver than she actually was.

As her eyes began to get accustomed to the pitch-black, she could make out her surroundings faintly. Taking small steps, she made her way towards what she could make out as the bookshelf which held the story book she had just been read. Reaching out for it and grabbing it firmly with her tiny hands, she aggressively ripped off the last pages of the book, adamant on never hearing that ending ever again.

————

With a loose pen she picked up

its black ink used to tattoo on her arm

a perfectly straight-edged rectangle

she was determined that she would sleep in

when her days are over

and her last breath is gone.

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M.

It never fills me up.

I'm climbing up a giant rock.

I'll never reach the top.

But I can't stop, I can't stop.