I reckon I was wrought from stardust and longing
Placed upon this world to bear witness
To love, as the rain adores parched earth
As a storm bestows all its might
Without demand, without return

I would splinter myself into slivers of aching light
Not a thousand, not a million – simply enough
To thread the wounds of another closed
But what is left of a being who unravels for others
What remains of a candle that
Burns itself hollow to ward off the darkness

I would surrender the marrow of my existence,
Trace silvered fragments into
The trembling palms of the forsaken
Carve them into dying constellations,
So they may no longer wander, unnamed and unseen
For who are we, if not the sum of the stars that remember us
Who am I, if not a fleeting ember of their night

Yet love is a cruel alchemy,
A wellspring that does not drink from itself
And when the final ember sputters, when the rain
Has spent its last drop upon the earth
Does the husk of devotion dissolve into the wind
Or does it linger, a ghost aching for hands that will never stretch forth

Will the world remember the light
Or simply the void where Aether once thrived

*Footnote: Aether, in Greek Mythology, was hypothesised to be the “pure essence” breathed in by Gods, which filled the heavens in which they resided. (https://www.historicmysteries.com/science/aether/35788/)