Unlit stars
"I am smoke and silver, a flicker, a ripple, a half-heard sigh"
My heart longs for your presence.
I move in the corners of your sky,
a ribbon of smoke curling around unlit stars,
a language of flickers that you never read.
Your storms pass, heavy and slow,
and I am the drizzle that collects
in the cracks of sidewalks you will never see.
I learn the weight of my own absence,
how it presses softly against doors
you have already closed,
how it tastes like moth wings
and the hollow pulse of forgotten hours.
I fold myself into shadows
so thin they almost disappear,
and still tremble,
as though my edges could fracture
from a glance too bright.
I taste your world in fragments,
in the pause of a step, the hum of distant machines,
and imagine my name
echoing only as a ghost,
a whisper tangled in your schedule
that you never catch
because I am never more than a flicker
in the corner of vision.
Sometimes I picture my bones dissolving,
becoming translucent like melted wax,
so that if you looked,
you would see the empty chambers,
the tiny sparks of wanting,
and maybe then
you might remember I exist.
I fold nights into myself,
each one a careful misstep
on floors that are not mine,
leaving trails of ash and quiet perfume,
traces that might curl upward,
might kiss your shoulder in passing,
and I ache for you to notice
even as I know it is foolish.
I watch your weight,
heavy with gravity I cannot lift,
and I am a pebble in the pocket
you no longer check,
a small mischief that clinks against your world
but never tilts it.
And yet I burn.
I burn like a shard of glass in sunlight,
sharp, glittering, and entirely ignored.
I am the unclaimed corner of your day,
the flickering candle in a house
you have already left,
the delicate misstep of wind
through an empty hallway.
Even in absence, I ache.
A silent drum that hammers
against the walls of your attention.
I wonder if you ever feel me,
the way air presses against skin,
how shadows lean toward the light
they cannot reach.
I am that shadow,
stretching, curling,
reaching for a warmth
you may never notice.
I am smoke and silver,
a flicker, a ripple, a half-heard sigh,
and still I ache
to be the thing you catch
before it vanishes.
I ache to press against your world,
to fold into the creases of your day,
to burn in a way that cannot be ignored,
even as I vanish silently into nothing.
I exist between the beats of your life,
a quiet, whimsical fracture,
a secret you carry unknowingly,
and I wonder endlessly
if my wanting
is too thin, too fractured, too foolish,
or if somewhere,
even in the rush of your storms,
I am something
that lingers.
I fold myself into the half-light,
a tangle of ink and breath,
and wait for you to see me.
Though I know you do,
and still I burn,
and still I ache,
and still I fold myself
into pieces
that I hope will someday
catch your heart instead of eye.
before they drift entirely
into the quiet of nothing.
There is a big chance that you’ll read this and I will not apologise. Only for not being able to tell you this directly <3