The Constellations Have Always Been There
By Hannah Jellen
I used to pretend that the tears in my eyes were stars caught in my lashes. I always wished I was more beautiful than I was.
I would go hill jumping in my dad’s ‘98 Chevy,
I guess I never knew that I was alive unless I was scared or in pain. Maybe that’s why I make bad decisions and cover my sorrow with tattoos. I used to walk on frozen oxbows in the winter and wonder if I’d fall through the ice. I used to bite my fingers until they bled, and I thought maybe that dying Was the most beautiful thing I’d ever do with my life.
But I’m too drunk to leave right now, I’ve got a bittersweet melancholy That burns like Old Crow at 3am, so I guess I’ll stick around for a while longer, And enjoy the taste of your skin, and the way your words linger on my tongue. I don’t want to die as much as I used to, in fact I’m starting to feel better now. Maybe the tears were stars after all.
My name is Hannah Clare Jellen. Born among the floodwaters in Southern Illinois, I now reside in central Ohio where I found my heart’s home among chosen family. After years of writing quietly, I started sending my poetry to those in my inner circle and after loving encouragement, have decided to begin sharing it more loudly. I write in between making music and working–both of which deeply inform the way my eyes process the light flashing off of the world’s sharp and magnificent edges. I am a neurodivergent musician-turned-funeral director and embalmer, tangled in the melancholic comfort of the cycles of decay and life, fascinated by the natural world. I am learning how to conjure reason and love from even the most pallid and tragic things--my poetry is the medium through which I process this difficult and enlightening journey.