Excerpt: Constellations and Collapse 🌌

☔️ I’d come home with a bruised ego and a chip on my shoulder. I’d slam doors and say things I didn’t mean—or perhaps things I meant too much. I’d sit in my room, blasting music with lyrics that made adults uncomfortable. It wasn’t rebellion for rebellion’s sake; it was survival. It was about not letting all the sadness curdle into nothingness.

Inside, I was still hurting. Still broken. Still haunted by a barn I couldn’t unsee, by a best friend and grandmother I couldn’t bring back, by a world that never once felt safe. The memories played on a loop in my mind, a haunting reminder of everything I had lost and everything I couldn’t change.

But nobody asked what I was running from. They only saw the anger, the sarcasm, the disobedience, and they punished the fire without ever asking what sparked it. I was a puzzle they didn’t care to solve, a problem they wanted to fix without understanding.

I started hanging out with older kids—the kind with bad reputations and eyes that had seen too much. We’d sneak out, smoke behind dumpsters, and talk about nothing and everything as if we had the world figured out. I liked their chaos. It felt honest. They didn’t expect me to smile or behave or be anything other than what I was. In their presence, I felt a sense of belonging, a connection forged in shared brokenness.

I wasn’t safe. Not from them. Not from myself. But I felt seen. And sometimes, being seen—no matter how messy, how reckless, how dangerous—felt better than being invisible. It was a temporary relief from the weight of my own existence, a momentary escape from the darkness that threatened to swallow me whole.

At school, teachers labeled me a problem. At home, I was a disappointment. But no one ever paused long enough to ask, “Why are you so angry? What happened to you?” I was a story they didn’t care to read, a voice they refused to hear.

I wanted to scream:

Because everything hurts.

Because I can’t sleep without nightmares.

Because I hate this body that feels like it doesn’t belong to me.

Because I miss people I can’t bring back and I hate people I can’t confront.

But I didn’t scream. I swallowed the words, letting them fester inside me like a poison. I just kept breaking rules like they were bones that would never heal anyway. I was a hurricane of emotions, a whirlwind of rage and sorrow, trapped in a world that refused to understand me.

In the quiet moments, when the chaos subsided, I would sit alone and wonder if things would ever change. If I would ever find peace in a world that felt so hostile. If I would ever be able to let go of the anger and find healing in the places that hurt the most.

Year thirteen was a battle, a fight for my own survival in a world that seemed determined to break me. But even in the darkest moments, there was a flicker of hope, a small voice inside me that whispered, “Keep going. You’re stronger than you think.” And so, I pushed forward, one day at a time, determined to find a way through the storm.” ☔️