Nothing but ink stars
Every day I wonder why
I hold nighttime on my skin
The way a mirror reflects a stranger.
It rests super-imposed
beneath the lashes of my eyes,
a war zone of bruised crescent moons.
I can count the stars
that have fallen from my skies
because they are the scars on my wrists -
shackles amounting
to all of the moments when time
stole the brilliance from my hands.
I am bound to darkness
the way the Earth is tethered
to the relentless arms of gravity -
do not you think
that the planet tires
of being burned by the sun?
And don’t you wonder
why it is that the sun still shines
even when it brings it closer to its demise?
To live life as Autumn
(to await the breath of dawn
that finally heralds Winter’s arrival,
To fall away
into the embrace
of a Weeping Willow,
and be buried
six feet beneath
every lost memory)
is all I have ever known,
because I hold nighttime on my skin
the way the mirror holds the reflection of me.