Everything

If the stars could speak, I've always wondered what they would say.
Would they render us cowards for sitting back and watching each lantern fall,
allowing Ursa's handle to crumble? In this sepia-toned memory called life,
laughter is the necklace torn from the past's chest,
leaving it frozen in some shade of vintage.
Orange reminds me of long walks in autumn.
Bundled in a homeade scarf, zig-zags, I kneel in the grass,
fresh with morning dew, and I pray to the sky,
How do you know when you love someone? How do I know who I love?
No handcrafted flo chart will tell me the answer.
Night falls, and Orion's broken belt twists around
the sucked-in small of my body, and hoists this fractured shadow
you call human to its feet. My shadow becomes a monster,
and it doesn't make sense. Small rivers of sorrow grow
to become the gray dust blanketing my emerald eyes.
I like to think it's stardust, and my tears catch the light.
In this sepia-toned reality, there is a painting of what time erased,
because I won't let myself believe that the shadow monster days
are gone forever. The ones where I wasn't alone,
the ones where nostalgia was Venus and Mercury and Jupiter, so distant
that you'd never spare a glance its way.
There are simply not enough glances to spare.
There is a painting that layers the snowcapped trees,
and I'll keep looking for it, even after the land of the snowcapped trees
is colonized by politicians whose city lights
will never be beautiful enough to replace the stars, like
Ursa's crooked handle. Alike, I wonder if I am beautiful enough.
I wear an orange homeade scarf from my mother.
Someday, time will wash her away. And me, too.
My emerald eyes will shimmer at this notion, every day. To time, I whisper,
I do not want to witness you walk beside me.
Yet I know I cannot fight you, either.
I wonder if I am pretty.
If what they say is true, that the eyes,
mine so green and forest and bright and jade and teal
and swampy and beautiful and emerald,
are the window into a person's soul, then how will I ever know who I am,
let alone what I look like? How will I never know who I am?
If the stars could speak, I would stay up all night asking them questions.
I have so many questions. You,
Have you ever thought about this?
How you will never see your own reflection?
I think about it every day. Still,
the stars are a mirror into my heart, and that is how I know who I am.
When Ursa's handle finally falls and reaches to both of our hearts,
sending some sort of crooked current that makes us smile,
I know I am the reason for the spark in your eyes.
And that spark is enough to tell me who I am.
My homeade September scarf is itchy with sepia-toned nostalgia,
but I don't mind. Orange reminds me of long walks in autumn,
and zig-zags, and praying to the skies in the fresh morning dew,
and perpetuated poems that don't even make sense to the poet herself.
Although, isn't that the point? They'd never be as beautiful if they made any sense.
The stars spoke to me, and they told me so.

elise.writer

VT

15 years old

More by elise.writer

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    i've heard this story a thousand times before.

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    became a longing. when i realized it was my turn,

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