Letters from Xhale the magazine Words that breathe. Stories that Linger,

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A single human-like star character, gentle and expressive, drifting alone through a deep black and midnight-blue cosmic sky. The star should feel like a small luminous person with subtle human qualities, not a literal human, not a cartoon, and not accompanied by any other figures or objects. Sophisticated literary surrealism, high contrast, restrained composition, melancholic and soulful mood, square image.

The Star That Ran Away

I lost myself the day you said you couldn’t love someone like me.
That single sentence became a storm—beautiful from a distance, devastating from within. It awakened something dark, carrying away what remained of my last clear conscience. Your words echoed so deeply through my mind that I accepted them as truth. I signed my name beneath them, convincing myself I had become exactly who you believed I was.

But what about you?

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This Is Not Going to Last

Author’s Note: “The Star That Ran Away” is what happens when one sentence from the wrong mouth takes up residence in your chest. You start wearing it like a name tag, orbiting its gravity, mistaking its weather for your own. This poem is me stepping outside that storm long enough to remember I was the sky before I was ever told I was the damage.