Humans are not beautiful. We simply lack the capacity for that.
It was a Friday evening, and I had just finished reading THRENODY OF STARS, a poem by a friend of mine; Matilda. I was mind-blown, the beauty of the poem so terrifying I could almost cry. It was a love story, not like any other. It talked about how the moon and the sun are lovers, their love transcending all odds. But the stars, they do not have a lover. The loneliness they must feel as they scattered across the vastness of the sky, with nothing but their twinkle. How we see the stars as nothing but a source of light in the dark, a genie for the superstitious. How we forget their magnificence the moment they are all gone. Yet, the stars always had a lover all along the way – and it was us. In all its’ minuteness, it loves us truly. The star knows it will lose its’ light, still, it forfeits it to carry our wishes home. Tell me a greater story than that of unrequited love, of how the stars keep falling without the warmth of the lover’s eyes.
I told her it was beautiful, probably the sixth time I will be calling her writings that. But what does it mean to be beautiful? What does beauty mean to me?
Beauty isn’t an aesthetic. It’s an emotion, sort of. It is the light you see at the end of a dark tunnel, the sun shining after a darkness. Heck, it is the darkness offering you comfort when light is nowhere to be found and your mind is at war with itself. Beauty is the reason you wake up every day and keep trying, even when you know there’s nothing left. Beauty is hope. It is me coming out of my shell after a bout of existential crises and thinking “Maybe it isn’t so bad”. Beauty is the only reason we are alive. We live for it. Yearning for its presence every minute of our life. It is the reason we look at that new, shiny knife at the edge of table and whisper to ourselves “Not today”. It is the only reason we are here. Beauty is life.
And human? We simply cannot be all that with just our faces.
Threnody of Stars by The Quill
I heard a story once,
About the moon and the sun being lovers
But I stare at the sky tonight and wonder where that leaves the stars
If the sun rises fast enough, it can send the moon it's rays
And for fulfillment, they are both eclipsed in our skies
A love transcending all odds
What a beautiful love story, you crooned,
Your eyes glazed over like it does when you're lost in those fairytales
But me? all I could think about
Was the loneliness the stars must feel
Scattered across the vastness of the sky
With nothing but it's twinkle against the Crayola back drop
I imagine that that must have left scars.
"They're just twinkling stones", you tell me
And I am bewildered
When it shoots across the sky,
Probably weary from doing the best it can, a source of light for groping feets in the dark
You squeeze your eyes shut,
Fingers crossed, and you make a wish
But after all that is over and done,
You forget about the magnificence of the little lights
Aren't stones that makes wishes come true, stuff that fairytales are made of?
Tonight, I found out the lover of the stars
And it is supposed to be us
In all it's minuteness, it loves us truely
And blind as we are, we fail to see
It shoots across the sky hoping to earn a glance from us
The star knows it will lose it's light,
Still, it forfeits it to carry our wishes home...
Tell me a sadder story,
And I will tell you the threnody of the stars
A cycle of unrequited love and the stars that have fallen without the warmth of a lover's eyes.
The quill