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Fun fact - the moon doesn’t actually produce any light on its own. It reflects its light from the sun, making it appear to be bright at night. My grandmother says I shine as bright as the moon, so I guess that means I am reflecting the light that’s around me.  I feel, though, that I am five hundred percent certain I am composed entirely of stardust. No one lives forever, and neither do the stars - eventually, when those massive stars reach the end of their lives? They go out with a bang. A supernova so bright, so beautiful, it drowns out all the other stars. When they do, they throw out all those elements they created.

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That’s what we’re made of.

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We’ve got calcium in our bones and iron in our blood and nitrogen in our DNA….and all of that?

It comes from those stars.

My name is Sayenia Mina Ishiko- and I am stardust.

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I think it’s important to never forget your real identity. I am a luminous conscious spec of stardust being forged in the crucible of cosmic fire. Even on the hardest days - when things are tough and I might want to cry. On the days where I miss mommy the most and know she is never coming back. On the days that…I remember her leaving.

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I also remember…

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There is cosmic flame in every stone and flower, every bird that sings and every frog that croaks.

And I get to be a part of this. All of it.

And then I am fine again.

I remember who I am.

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An Ishiko who loves to love the world and people in her life so wholly it is nearly consuming. I want to be colorful and happy and motivating and smart and dependable–

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. . .

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I was born of Shengese blood. My dad, Oliphr, is the head of my home. It is tradition that when a child is born, they are to be given a name in the family’s mother tongue. This process is ceremonial and considered a huge honorific title…all before you’re even seven years old. These names have meaning. My dad says they are supposed to be a guide in your life. Toward your destiny.

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My ‘guide’ name that was chosen?

Ayami. It means ‘colorful’.

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Is that….Me?

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I keep remembering this bedtime story my mother used to tell me when I was really small. You know, before she walked out on me and my daddy. It’s not a happy story, unlike a lot of the other story books we used to read. Still, it was one of my favorites that she used to read to me.  Even when my mommy would start to cry because of how sad it was. Even though it made me sad, too. We would curl up in my bed and read the story together - and these are the moments that make me less angry with her for leaving, now.

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The sun was high in the sky, the air was clean and pleasant. 

“What a nice day for a walk,” said John, as he walked through the forest.

“I can see the beautiful trees, smell the fresh air. Even all the little critters are thriving.” John mumbles to himself, smiling a happy smile.

But out of the corner of his eye does he spot a single caterpillar pod.

“Oh, how neat, a cocoon - and it looks like the caterpillar is working its way out to its new life of being a beautiful butterfly.”

Fascinated, John sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the small hole in the cocoon that it had managed to make. After a while, John realized the butterfly had stopped making any progress at all. It had no strength to continue and go further.  “I can’t watch this any longer, I need to help it!” John exclaims, as he takes out a pair of scissors to nip at the remaining bit of the cocoon. Only then is the butterfly able to escape from its pod.

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But it does not unfurl its wings, nor does it fly away. The butterfly sits on a leaf, its body swollen, and its wings crumpled.  John continued to watch the butterfly, hoping its wings would enlarge - that the butterfly would be able to support itself and fly away.

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But neither happens. In fact, the butterfly spends the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and deformed, shriveled up wings. It was never able to fly.

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What John in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the small opening of the cocoon is nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings - so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

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“Oh no!” says John, "What have I done?”

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