Re-Writes..."Ad Astra"

"i rarely have feelings like this. you know, the times in your life when you have those sentiments towards someone you can’t explain. and you can’t describe because words seem to lack the depth you think these feelings require for meaning. so i don’t even try. not even to myself. it’s no use attempting to put my feelings into words. as beautiful poems. or romantic love letters. what i feel can’t be relayed onto paper. it can only be felt. it can only dwell inside me, consuming me with a passion that burns within my soul. in a way i have always hoped to be. but even though this is what i’ve always wanted, and should be hedonic, having these feelings for you is also burdensome for me. because before i could feel like this and keep it to myself. i could deny my emotions and deny my desire for you, living in negation. not being happy. not feeling wanted. just existing, all alone. but now i realize that not telling you what you’re doing to me would not just be a crime against love, it would be a crime against myself. refusing to acknowledge my heart could quite possibly be the greatest sin i could ever commit. and i’m not willing to do that. to spend my life wondering what may have been. agonizing over wasted opportunities and foolish choices. being overwhelmed with an exigency for being with you, but just allowing this longing to serve as my contentment, though i’m not satisfied with that. still, i haven’t been able to tell you how i feel about you. and how you’re always on my mind. and how i think about the little things about you that have captivated me, such as your eyes. you see, at night while you’re sleeping, i spend hours observing the heavens. because i’ve found the stars and your eyes shine with the same brilliant radiance. and since i have a quixotic nature, i gaze at the sky in order to recall memories i have of your eyes. memories of emotions i sensed from them. memories of how you’ve looked at me. the feelings we shared in a momentary glance. the completeness i’ve experienced when staring into them. and stars seem to represent those same attributes, hence i recognize an intimate connection between them and myself. so i watch them glow fervently, their bright light a perfect contrast to the pitch blackness of the sky. wondering if any one star above me burns with the intensity my being does for you. but i already know such thoughts are unfounded and that none of these celestial bodies even has the capacity to. my love outshines a thousand stars and is a million times hotter. and yet, the stars inspire me, particularly in the way i feel about you. they strive to burn forever, undeterred by any obstacle that may stand before them. as do i. thus, i find comfort and assurance in such perseverance. holding the lessons learned from them close to my heart. believing that my love will last eternally, burning as hot in days of the new as it does now. still consuming me with an unwavering passion. and an immense desire for you. still leaving me wanting you as i do today. worried that these feelings will overpower me until i can no longer take it and am drowned by them, as the stars seem to be in the vastness of the sky. surrounded by darkness and the mystery that is the space between them. yet somehow, there is a promise of hope in even the smallest of stars, as a guiding light to a wayward soul. even when one’s life is shrouded in doubt, they serve as luminous beacons, flashing through the mist from a sea of obscurity. which is why i don’t just look to the stars. i believe in them. because stars share some of the best qualities that love, or at least the idea of love, has to offer. optimism in uncertainty, direction in vacillation. the propensity to subsist infinitely. not just a desire; a need, an intense hunger to sustain its own existence. born with the instinct of survival, the idea that it is essential it last forever. created with the ability to fade, but an unwillingness to let itself die. a star. my love for you. linked by conspicuous similarities. at least, that’s the notion i cling to. and keep in my heart. so that’s what i think at night when i’m alone. when you’re dreaming of the things that make you happy, the things that infuse that sparkle in your eyes, i’m watching the heavens and witnessing the same magnificence in a star."

sometime in '00 or '01.