Stardust

I keep your coordinates
folded in my purse,
a map that only opens
when I’m bleeding.

Your room is the same desolation,
the couch still cradles
our two solar systems
running after the same horizon.

Outside, the night presses its face
to the glass.
You let it in.
I remember how easily
you make darkness
feel like home.

I come back anyway,
not like a promise,
more a habit
the body mistakes
for gravity.

You pour me bourbon,
strike a match,
and watch the flame catch.
You never flinch
at the bright parts of me,
always only waiting
for the soft collapse.

Your hands still hold
their beautiful refusal,
closed as fists
around nothing.

I tell myself
this time I’ll stay
at the edge of you,
safe at a distance,
but distance is a myth
in a room this small.

So I fall.
Again.
A familiar return.
My ribs, sunken, learning
the shape of your silence.

Some stars are not meant
to be touched.
They still burn.

And I still come back
to the same orbit
to be reminded
what I can’t change:
I can cross the sky
a thousand times
and you will remain
the altar
where I burn to ash.

(Interstellar →)