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ISSUE NO. 26

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September 2026

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Creative

There Is Nothing in the Universe That Hurts the Way You Do

By

Daniel

Daniel writes from a prison in NSW.

Guillermo Ferla via Unsplash

To About Time,

I wrote this song when I started my sentence in June 2026. Thank you for your wonderful newspaper. It brings happiness to so many prisoners like me who made an error in judgement and wish this nightmare was over. Hope it finds the back pages.

Daniel

Verse 1

They say stars collapse in perfect silence

Whole galaxies fall without a sound

But I have felt something far more violent

Than anything the heavens have torn down.

Black holes swallow light forever

Time bends, planets drift apart

Yet nothing in the universe remembers

The weight of a broken heart

Pre Chorus

Time keeps turning like nothings changed

And I’m standing here in the wreckage you made

Chorus

There is nothing in the universe

That hurts the way you do

No supernova burns as bright

As the love I lost with you

The cosmos keeps its distance

Cold and endlessly vast

But my heart collapsed in seconds

From the future to the past

Verse 2

They measure pain in miles of darkness

In years of light we’ll never reach

They do not count the distance

Between your hand and mine on empty sheets

The moon still holds the restless oceans

Gravity still knows its role but

Love rewrites the laws of motion

When it lets go.

Pre Chorus

The stars still rise like they always will

But they cannot tell me how to feel

Chorus

There is nothing in the universe

That hurts the way you do

No spinning star, no falling sky

Cuts straight and clean in two

The cosmos keeps its distance

But it does not feel as vast

As the silence you left echoing

Where our forever asked —

Middle Eight Solo

Bridge

If love was made of stardust

Than maybe that is why it aches

We were meant to shine together

Not fall apart like cosmic fate

Chorus

There is nothing in the universe

That hurts the way you do

But even broken constellations

Still learn how to be beautiful

If hearts are just small galaxies

Learning how to be aligned

Than maybe I will orbit hope

And leave the dark behind.

Outro

If love was written in the skies

Than pain is just its echo passing by –

I am still here

Still true

The universe still aches for you…

To About Time,

I wrote this song when I started my sentence in June 2026. Thank you for your wonderful newspaper. It brings happiness to so many prisoners like me who made an error in judgement and wish this nightmare was over. Hope it finds the back pages.

Daniel

Verse 1

They say stars collapse in perfect silence

Whole galaxies fall without a sound

But I have felt something far more violent

Than anything the heavens have torn down.

Black holes swallow light forever

Time bends, planets drift apart

Yet nothing in the universe remembers

The weight of a broken heart

Pre Chorus

Time keeps turning like nothings changed

And I’m standing here in the wreckage you made

Chorus

There is nothing in the universe

That hurts the way you do

No supernova burns as bright

As the love I lost with you

The cosmos keeps its distance

Cold and endlessly vast

But my heart collapsed in seconds

From the future to the past

Verse 2

They measure pain in miles of darkness

In years of light we’ll never reach

They do not count the distance

Between your hand and mine on empty sheets

The moon still holds the restless oceans

Gravity still knows its role but

Love rewrites the laws of motion

When it lets go.

Pre Chorus

The stars still rise like they always will

But they cannot tell me how to feel

Chorus

There is nothing in the universe

That hurts the way you do

No spinning star, no falling sky

Cuts straight and clean in two

The cosmos keeps its distance

But it does not feel as vast

As the silence you left echoing

Where our forever asked —

Middle Eight Solo

Bridge

If love was made of stardust

Than maybe that is why it aches

We were meant to shine together

Not fall apart like cosmic fate

Chorus

There is nothing in the universe

That hurts the way you do

But even broken constellations

Still learn how to be beautiful

If hearts are just small galaxies

Learning how to be aligned

Than maybe I will orbit hope

And leave the dark behind.

Outro

If love was written in the skies

Than pain is just its echo passing by –

I am still here

Still true

The universe still aches for you…

This
piece
was originally printed in the
September 2026
edition of About Time.
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