Eulogizing to the Stars

I wish I could see you tonight. The sky is cold and foggy like the bottom of my shower, and I miss you. 

You were the prettiest girl I know. Eyes the color of soy milk and midnight hair braided with lucky charms. In a sea of red lips and curvy hips, you were a shooting star. Even your mom said so. 

You were her treasure; if she could paint you in gold and display you in the town square she would have. She would pinch your cheeks for color and present you to all the hungry Prince Charmings. She was proud to have a daughter like you; thought her genes a work of god to produce something so fine. Nothing could be more intricate, delicate, luminous. 

She was hungry too. For the validation of dark knights and people at insatiable heights. Like a vase painted with the cosmos, she flaunted you for the universe to see. My daughter is a goddess, and you all must kneel. 

Your beauty broke them. After all, every mother is a god and every daughter a goddess in her eyes. The sky didn’t need another northern star. The real gods were invincible, and you were a girl masquerading in a porcelain face.

The girls at school use beauty as a weapon. They paint their faces and shine their lips to seduce people into the illusion of perfection. To secure prom dates and new friends. You were a victim of the incessant battle. You would have cracked porcelain masks on the kitchen floor. You would have taken their lip gloss and painted a heart on your cheek to make them laugh.

I have vowed to dig my own grave before I die. Your mom must have thought it a courtesy, to prepare yours for you. Inciting the wrath of gods. A shame; I would’ve loved to see you covered in dirt in the moonlight. 

I wonder if she begged for your life. I would have. If your dad offered every penny to his name to spare you. I would have. I would have fought every angry god to make you mine. But in the end, it was a classic trolley problem. Sacrifice the village or the girl with midnight hair and a porcelain face. I might’ve killed the village. 

Is it selfless, to choose the majority? Or is it selfish, to choose the path of least destruction? 

I’ve never been to the beach. What does the ocean feel like, lapping salt between your toes? What was the wind like, scraping your cheeks raw? I imagine it tastes like fear.

Jellyfish carry tiny jolts of lightning in their tentacles. Would the power of ten thousand be enough to electrocute you? A forest of them amassing out of the sea in an amalgamous blob intent on destroying you. Your hair would look beautiful, full of electric fire.

If I had been walking by, I would have been the first to save you. To untangle the seaweed from around your ankles and throw fistfuls of salt at the monster. I would’ve blinded it, so it could never know the beauty of your terror. 

If I had a pegasus, I would have swooped down and brushed your arm with its feather. You would have looked up, and it would’ve been me in the sky for once. 

No one has ever called me brave. I lay in my bed at night and daydream about the stars. I would rather live with the people I find there than the ones on earth. For you, Andromeda, I would have been brave. If I were around when you were stuck on that rock, you’d be more than just a collection of stars in my imagination.

My therapist thought it was a good idea for me to write this eulogy. Constellations aren’t real, she said. What she meant was: I wasn’t the one to save you. A real hero with a flying horse and a snake’s head to his name became your savior. He fell in love with you, the way a regular Prince Charming does. 

When is it going to be my turn? When I abandon the stars and the magic that saved you, that put you into the sky above my bed? To me, you are as real as the cold tile under my feet. If loving you gets me through my nights, what is so wrong with that? Constellations are maps; a silver hand in the dark.  

They want me to mourn you, Andromeda. Only I know that you are immortal, living among the stars the way you always deserved. 

I think that if your Charming hadn’t shown up you would have saved yourself. Andromeda means leader. You burn too brightly to be contained. One day the stars will explode, and you will fall into the galaxy. 

For me, that day is today. It’s time to say goodbye. It’s time to be brave for you, like I always promised I would. 

You had a life well lived. People who loved you and looked up to you, for the guidance of a well-timed wink. That’s something not everyone can say. Thank you for never leaving me alone. I will tattoo your stars on my soul and love you, to the moon and back.

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Ashley Pennock is a young writer from New Jersey and current English Writing major at the University of Pittsburgh. She enjoys writing fantasy, experimental, and LGBTQ+ stories. Her work can be found in Alternative Milk Magazine, Maudlin House, AC|DC Journal and others. Follow her on Instagram at amp.writing for more!