Between Coasts and Constellations

Between Coasts and Constellations

featured in The Open Letters | by Charles Davis

The open Letters

Oct 21, 2026

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From

Charles Davis

💌

That night, we danced like a pair of moths fluttering around a city lamppost. It was wild and exhilarating, and honestly the most fun I had had in a very long time. There wasn’t any music, so we made our own, humming and slapping our thighs beneath the coruscating stars overhead.

Later, exhausted from our exertion, we rested beneath the willowy branches of a towering oak tree. It seemed so impossibly tall that, had we climbed it, we could have reached out and scooped up the stars by the handful. We joked about what each of us would do with our stolen bounty once we had them tucked away in our pockets. I said I would keep mine hidden and share them only with you. But you said you would take yours into the city and give them to the children there, the ones who never get to see the stars in such abundance because of the light pollution.

I knew right then that I loved you.

And I hated thinking about how, next year, we would be leaving for schools on opposite coasts.

Still, it made me smile to imagine you on the East Coast, gallivanting through the streets of New York City in the blistering winter cold, wrapped in your faux chinchilla coat and immersed in intellectual conversations with your friends, each of you envisioning your future role in humanity’s metamorphosis. On weekends, you would wander through bodegas and bistros in search of panini and biscotti while researching Spinoza and Kant, and at night you would dance at clubs until three in the morning.

Then I thought of myself, out in sunny California where the weather is perpetually benevolent, pursuing a degree in visual arts. After classes had ended for the evening, I would make my way to the shoreline where, perhaps, I would finally learn to surf, despite my aversion to the water—as you know better than anyone from our summers together, when we would steal away to my father’s boat, pilfer his beers, and laugh as I inevitably ended up seasick and draped miserably across the deck.

Still, perhaps I would try simply for the sake of proving something to myself. You know how obstinate I am, how once I fasten my mind upon something I pursue it with almost religious devotion, refusing surrender even when defeat seems certain.

My weekends would be spent wandering through museums and libraries, lingering beneath cathedral-like ceilings and among endless shelves, trying to devour as much classic literature as my hands could gather. Perhaps I would meet a girl at some party, or perhaps in one of my classes, and maybe we would go to dinner together, or spend an afternoon at an amusement park beneath spinning lights and carnival music. Maybe we would even kiss.

But I doubt it.

Because I know my heart belongs to you.

I mean, how could anyone not fall hopelessly and irrevocably in love with the girl who wanted to steal the stars only so she could give them away? How could anyone ever truly recover from someone like that?

About the Author:

Charles Davis is an Oklahoma-based writer, Marine Corps veteran, and emerging literary journalist whose work explores grief, redemption, addiction, incarceration, and human resilience. Having discovered writing while incarcerated in 2015, he draws on lived experience to tell the stories of people often overlooked by society. His nonfiction has appeared in Prison Writers and The Marshall Project, and he has collaborated with VICE Magazine. His current project, Invisible Tulsa, documents the lives and aspirations of people experiencing homelessness, seeking to challenge assumptions and make space for stories that deserve to be heard.

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Charles Davis

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