A star dies
"But even I know resurrection is a myth reserved for gods and delusions. "
The soundtrack: “You’re like a falling star”
A star dies
It is a quiet collapse,
the sort of silence that bruises the air
without ever making a sound.
A star dies,
and somehow you are still here,
breathing, smiling in the doorway
like nothing has occured in this universe.
But I can smell the ash of you even as you speak.
They say a star’s death is an explosion,
a brilliant scream, a final flare of self.
But I think it’s more like an eyelash
falling from a tired face.
So small, so inevitable,
yet it carries a whole universe with it.
A wish.
A breaking.
A secret no one asked to keep.
I feel like someone misplaced the sky
and blamed me for losing it.
Like I’m holding the outline of your hand
while the warmth has already wandered off
into some unreachable corridor of time.
Like you’re standing two steps away
but your light is centuries behind you,
still traveling here
long after the core has burned out.
I miss you the way a planet misses its sun,
slowly, catastrophically,
in ways no one can see
until the cold arrives.
I honor the absence.
I keep circling the wound.
I call it devotion,
though it tastes more like gravity
begging for mercy.
If I could,
I’d gather the remnants of your vanished light,
the dust, the shattered glow,
and stitch them back into you,
or maybe into me.
But even I know resurrection is a myth
reserved for gods and delusions.
We mortals only learn
to love the afterglow,
to warm our hands
at the ghost of what once burned.
When a star dies
Something unspeakable has already happened
and we’re pretending it hasn’t.
Like yearning is the only language left,
a long, trembling vowel dragged across the night.
And still, I look for you.
And still, I hope the light arrives.