When the Stars Refused to Shine

When the Stars Refused to Shine

There was a night

when even the sky turned its face away,

and the stars—

those faithful witnesses of every wound and wonder—

refused to shine.

The darkness was heavier than usual,

not the gentle kind that lets you rest,

but the suffocating weight

that presses against your chest

until every breath feels borrowed.

I searched the horizon for light,

but found only the echo of my own thoughts—

loud, jagged,

clawing at the fragile corners of hope.

I whispered prayers to a silence

that gave nothing back.

Even the moon seemed tired of listening,

half-hidden,

as if ashamed of its own dim glow.

And I thought,

perhaps this is what despair is—

not the absence of love,

not the cruelty of loss,

but the emptiness of a sky

that no longer remembers how to shine.

Yet, somewhere between the shadows,

I realized:

the stars were not gone,

only hidden.

They were waiting,

beyond the veil of clouds,

patient, unyielding,

as if to remind me—

even hopeless nights

are not forever.

And maybe that’s why

the stars sometimes refuse to shine:

to teach us that light,

when it returns,

will feel like a miracle.