my constellations (i call them your name)

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams, Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse

I was staring down at my hands earlier,
fragile looking thing; I’ve always been a worrier.
Yet, weak as they seem, I’ve always been scared
anything I touched would break, no matter how I cared.
Are these hands of a monster? Are these bones even mine?
I asked these questions, and replied, “Whatever, it’s fine.”
If I’m meant to be like this, if I’m the only common factor
in all that has happened, then I’ll go forward a smiling actor
and ignore the thorns I’ve watered, grown in my chest.
There’s nothing I can do, when I like how they’re pressed.

And yet, somehow the setting soul, laid in darkness,
met sunshine, and realized it wasn’t quite so starless.
Someone with a heart like mine tripped into my cave,
and at first I said, god, no way, this doesn’t count as brave.
I looked upon their face and saw pain, and pain, and I was froze
because there, too, I saw something and I didn’t know—
I didn’t know before that someone with my broken heart, my pain
could look so beautiful, so bright, in their eyes something humane.
I’d thought before, surely I should become a demon to match
everything that I’d seen, felt, all the things that still scratch.

Here was someone, too, who probably had felt the same,
but I knew just by looking at you that you weren’t to blame.
When I touched your hand, I felt sunlight and stars pour out.
I was starstruck, blown away, god, I still am without a doubt.
Those brief things I saw, and that I still see—the pain and hurt,
they’re there, whispering, but there’s more inside you, overt.
Universes are dark, a void, but are brimming with stars.
Listen, I wanted then to claim this darkness as ours.
Conquer it, take back our crowns, put yours atop your head.
I’ve never been so certain of the good inside another, I said.

I say, I promise, I know it to be true.  I’m not afraid any longer,
not when you’re here with me. I’m learning to be stronger.
“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
You’re my star, my light, but for you I’m also becoming bright.
We may flicker and stumble, but one of us will always shine
while the other recovers, and our hands and hearts align.
I love you, I love you, I love you, and I’ll love you more.
Don’t worry darling, I won’t let you fall. I’ll catch you before.
Always, forever,
whenever, wherever.

“Yours is the light by which my spirit’s born:
- you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.”
― E.E. Cummings