It had no batteries.
It could never die
If still it is found
It must only be wound
How lucky we are to find
We always
Have someone to wind.

The dinner table is crowded.
There are bowls of gravy, potatoes and greens -
Plates of meat and stuffing...
Don’t worry it gets better.
Juice and cider instead of wine.
Clean crystal cups and thick napkins,
All trimmed in blue.
Surrounded by loud elephants
Dancing on the words we don’t say.
The elephants slip on peas,
And sip my drink.
My relatives give glances
Instead of embrace.
The conversation gets heavy
As our stomachs get full.
The dinner table is a stage
Instead of a refuge.
We all wear our masks and pretend we’re OK.
The actors are well paid in self-loathing,
And pain;
Solitude.
Relationships that don’t fit into pockets
Because our phones are too important.
We are broken and shattered,
Unwilling to be fixed.
The elephants dance in gravy,
And pretend it’s a bath.

When they tell you you are made of stars,
do not let them forget what stars are made of.
Stars are not glitter, not stickers on the ceiling,
not there for decoration.
Stars are chunks of collapsing galaxy. They are
hundred-thousand mile wide nuclear furnaces
that consume their surroundings into death.
They are not friendly; they do not exist
to write poems about.
Stars are not made of metaphors. You
are not made of other people’s words.

When they tell you you are made of stars.
look them in the eye and remind them
that so are they, and so is the earth,
and so is the gum on the bottom of your shoes,
and so is the fist you will hit them with
the next time they try to placate you
with their condescending words –
When they tell you you are different from others,
ask them why you should want to be.

Do not let them call you foreign.
Do not let them trap you up on a pedestal,
surrounded by books that cannot hurt them.
Read things that can hurt them.
Your mind is a forest richer than folklore;
do not let your curiosity be reduced to an accessory.
Your intelligence is not a fashion statement.
Your existence is not a novelty.
You are not a metaphor
for someone else’s problems.

When they tell you you are made of stars,
tell them you have always known this.
Tell them you have fire in your bone marrow,
that you are burning with the deaths
of the entire universe before you.

When they tell you you are made of stars,
tell them you know.
Tell them they should keep their distance.

My heart is a compass and you are the North.
I want to tell you that
you are the stars,
& I am a lonely astronomer
trapped in a city of lights.

Although I'm lost in the space
Of where we used to be,
I still find myself
Wandering through traces we left.
Grasping for your incandescence.

You are Polaris and I am caught in your glow.

Laughter is the only sound
That is strong enough
To cover to pain
That never gives in
When the music stops
And the blinds pulled down
Pain stretches his legs
All over my heart