Moths thrown haphazardly against blazing bonfires, dancing into a starless night sky void. Sharp frigid air breathes life into the lungs and awakens the eyes to the painfulness of the luminescence, against which dark penetrates more and more, wisps of smoke whispering back into the blackness, bearing secrets that will never be shared. Maybe even mine. A wind pitches my way so that the eyes sting and water and burn, but there is a defiance within me that tells me not to wipe them away. Rather, let them sit there so that I too may be a monument to the embers within. If weeping is cowardice, let me drown in my bitter tears, for never more alive did I feel than when I stood under the paradoxical cold, cold, coldness of a thousand stars and waded in the salt of my burden. I pour my heart out to their majesty and when they deem me unworthy of their response, I sink back down, pulled down low towards the Earth, ensconced in one lonely blue folding chair among an empty ring of brethren. None of these, neither the reverent stars nor the silent chairs nor the fading campfire lend me verbal consolation, yet their stability comforts me all the same. Warmth in the form of a blazing, smoking campfire, painfully bright. I almost can feel the flames on my bare skin. May it always be as such.
Eva Steel is a member of the class of 2019.