Last night the stars came down,

not the gentle ones

I wished upon with Mama’s hand in mine

but heavy, angry stars,

with fire for wings

and thunder in their bellies.

They cracked the sky open,

spilled night across our street,

made the earth shake

like it was afraid too.

I wanted to point and say, look,

the stars are dancing,

but Mama pulled me close,

pressed my head against her chest

so I would...

It starts

behind my teeth

clawing, scratching,

pushing against the walls of my chest.

I want to let it out.

I want to fill the room with it

so loud

so raw

the air shatters

and someone finally hears

me.

But I don’t.

I swallow.

Again.

Again.

Smile. Nod.

“Fine,” I say,

and it curls,

tightens,

a living thing coiled in my ribs.

How long?

I can’t remember a day

without this undercurrent.

A scream wi...

The rift opened,

dragging me with it.

Not into fire.

Not into stars.

But into her silence.

That pause she left hanging

between one laugh,

and the next.

I fell through her eyes,

through half-lidded knowing

that asked for no language,

that answered before I even spoke.

It was a tearing,

a splitting of the world I’d kept safe,

and suddenly every secret,

every trembling shard of me

I had folded into...

A rabbit drifts past,

no, a ship,

no, maybe it’s me.

Arms stretching into the sky,

fingertips brushing at clouds

before they vanish into whispers.

A jagged mountain cracks open my chest,

and courage leaks out in rivulets

I cannot name,

but feel in my knees,

in the way my hair wants to dance

like flames in a windstorm.

A whale swims overhead, slow and deliberate,

and suddenly I am the ocean,

wave...

Paris burned beneath a storm-torn sky. Lightning split the heavens, and thunder rolled like cannon fire. Notre Dame bled fire and smoke from its wounded towers. The air reeked of ash, charred stone, and the coppery tang of human blood.

From his perch among the shattered statues, Quasimodo stared down at the nightmare below. Vampires swarmed the streets, moving in disciplined packs. Their claws to...

“Look at you, calling me spineless behind my back.”

Her voice cracked the silence like thunder. I had almost forgotten what it was to hear her, low, fierce, too beautiful for me to withstand. The attic smelled of wax and rosemary, a place that once held our laughter, our whispered spells, our bodies twined in secret.

Now the air itself recoiled.

I turned. Elira stood in the doorway, hair wild, ...

I outgrew my skin

like a child outgrows shoes.

Tight seams splitting

at the ankles of my soul.

Every heartbreak left its trace:

a stretch mark,

a tender ache,

a scar that stretched me wider.

I thought breaking meant ending.

But no.

It was only the sound of bones reshaping,

only the hush of old selves

slipping loose

so something steadier could take root.

Love.

Once a stranger I chased,

a flee...

They told her ambition was unbecoming,

a stigma stitched into her dress

by hands that never wore it.

The boardroom smiled politely,

men in cufflinks of wealth and inheritance

polished into arrogance.

Who spoke of merit the way priests

speak of miracles:

a mystery that always arrived

in their own sons’ hands.

She watched promotions float upward

like helium balloons,

the strings cut when she re...

The first time she met him, his laughter had been a balm. His words, smooth as wine, had melted her defenses. He knew exactly how to look at her, how to touch her hand at the right moment. A gentleman, she thought. At last, a man who wasn’t cruel.

But the charm had worn thin like cheap paint. Beneath the smile was something ravenous. She saw it in how his eyes lingered too long, not with love, b...

The chamber smelled faintly of polished wood and old arguments. The committee sat in a half-circle, eyes glassy from too many testimonies, too many hours pretending to listen. Cameras lined the walls. Their red lights blinked like indifferent stars.

Maya adjusted the microphone. It screeched, then settled into silence. She looked at the rows of suited officials, each one shuffling papers, checki...