we spent so long looking up
wondering if the silence meant absence
or something that had simply
run out of words for how much it meant
but the cosmos didn’t stay up there
it came down
the long way
through cold and through dark
and through centuries of not being understood
and sat down beside you
on the worn surface of your ordinary life
to watch you try to figure out how to stay
you think you are waiting for certainty
for something to arrive and make the not-knowing stop
but the not-knowing is the only place
where anything genuinely new
has ever managed to begin
the cosmos does not want you finished
it wants you present
your hands are made of things
that burned out long before you were born
so that you could be here
worrying about tomorrow
and the ache you carry
that you keep mistaking for loneliness
that is the oldest thing there is
trying to tell you
it stopped being afraid of the dark
the moment you walked into it
we thought the holy was altitude
something above us
something we had to earn our way toward
but it has been here
at your level
this whole time
asking in a low voice
if it can finally set down
what it has been carrying
and rest against you
and be held
by something as small and real
as you
—lyra moon (starlight resting its collarbones on wood)
may 26, 2026