Dying Suns

'The sun will die one day.'

She supposes it's true. The photograph was of a young woman, blurry and dark and she wishes it were her.

She feels like a bad person, and she doesn't know why.

Well, she doesn't know why she's feeling like this, now. Honestly, she had never been as disgusted, as horrified, as she was this moment as she sat there, looking at the photo. Though she knew it had nothing to do with it, or the little box she found in the floorboards under her bed.

It was like all of her mistakes were eating her up, becoming all she thought about until she turned empty. Had she always been like this- this hollowed-out person who didn't even know how they felt half of the time? She would like to say no, but then again she can't remember.

Regret filled her up, she was so cold in this empty house. She liked to think the lady in the dull image kept her company.

Before that, the only companion she had was a cat, a little black and white thing that she should never have kept. Because all she does is yell, and push, and regret. That's all she does, and the cat doesn't deserve it. The cat deserves better. Sometimes she loves her cat, sometimes she's so grateful. 

But her insides are never the same, and she always changes when she gets comfortable.

Sadness drowns her. Anger fuels her. Self-hatred buries her.

Some days she's so happy, happy to be alive and here and her, because she's beautiful, and smart, and nice.

Most days she wants to disappear, just wants to go home and forget and be happy. She hates her body, she hates her voice. She wishes she wasn't so stupid and incapable and numb inside.

But it's okay, because she's nearly there. And one day she'll die, and time will move on, and everything will be alright. Nothing can live forever, even her regret and shame. Even the sun will die one day.

Even the sun will die one day.

Sometimes it's hard to breathe, and it feels like everything is shaking and closing in, and… what comes to mind is all the horrible things she has ever done, all the regretful things she has ever said. So she closes her eyes and clenches her teeth. She just wants to go home, home, home. But she's there, so why doesn't it feel comforting? Even the sun will die one day, nothing you do will live forever, nothing you could ever do will live forever.

Nothing even truly matters, when you come to think of it.

And no matter how terrible that sounds, it makes her feel better. It makes her feel a little lighter. She makes plans, to one day move away from all this. Move away and start a new life where no one knows her, where she can be who she wants to be. Be seen how she wants to be seen. She tries to learn other languages, tries to save up money, even though she has terrible motivation.

She wants to be free of all this guilt and self-hatred, of always feeling not good enough. She wants to see the world and make friends like how she used to, wants to stop this paranoid feeling always hanging in her chest like a skeleton in a closet. As if she's always being watched, recorded, judged. She wants, for once, to be mindlessly happy. To feel like she's doing something, and for it to be good.

At least a little.

The photograph crumples in her shaking fist, she looks at the tainted woman past a veil of unshed tears. A tear trickles down her flesh, it burns her ripped lips, tastes bittersweet on her tongue.

And maybe the feeling like she abandoned them will ease, and maybe she can let go of the past and all those paper cutouts of people she keeps locked in the drawers of her mind. Will her dreams stop being haunted by them? Will she stop hating all of them? Will life find meaning, will she find how to let go of the pain, even if she would be lonely without it?

She doesn't know.

She drops the ruined picture back in the water-damaged box, placing the lid back on top. She brings her hands up to her eyes, digs them into her skin, and sobs.

There are only so many months until she, maybe named Lily (for now), turns eighteen. She's terrified, still stuck in her early to mid-teens. Eighteen, legal, mature. An adult, to the clubs and voting booths, anyways.

Lily wants to go back, back to when she was younger and happy and still chubby in the face. Now she's just lonely and toxic to be around. She doesn't feel seventeen, doesn't even feel sixteen, so what is she doing here? What is she doing here, with this body that doesn't feel her own? With this brain that feels so different, yet the same.

With a girl, held captured by yellowed paper in a damp box, sat in her lap? She throws the box to the floor in self-disgust, feeling her heart tighten as her cat yawns from where she's sat at the end of the bed, making her way to lay in Lily's lap.

The night drags on.

Later, she pets her cat, smiles down at her. Pushes her off her bare legs because she's typing absolute nonsense on her laptop. She stares at the paragraphs, can't tell if it's a horror story or an autobiography.

The words leave her, she feels empty inside. She hears something move across the room and feels her heart falter slightly. It's probably just the rubbish in the plastic bag settling, but her house is dark (she likes it like this, even though she had a horrible fear of it when she was younger) and her paranoia is constant.

Her skin itches, she should deflee her cat and bug bomb the house, but Lily is awfully lazy.

Her house is always cold, like how her house is always dark. It's ironic, because she has two air conditioners, though neither works. Lily wonders if she could die of hypothermia if she goes long enough without a heater. It's almost winter, and the blankets she has barely keep her warm. 

Thin, thin like the skin that holds all the rot and maggots inside.

Death doesn't sound pleasant like that though, so maybe she'll buy a heater soon. She's sure her cat would love it, the poor little thing that only has Lily to love and be loved by.

Said cat, maybe her name will be Milk, crawls back onto her lap. A ball of purring warmth, small and soft, and cleaning her fur with a coarse tongue. Lily doesn't push her away this time, deciding nothing is coming to mind anyway. She stops typing and saves the document.