honestly, baby, who are you?
you can walk all tall all you want to
but honestly, who are you?
nobody cares what comes out of your mouth
and nobody even listens.
nobody knows your name or the stars in your eyes or how they
glitter and shine like the constellations at night
honestly, baby, who are you?

because let's get real here:
no one really has stars in their eyes because no one has ever gotten close enough to anyone's face to determine the constellations
we romanticize eyes like skies and fields and oceans
we claim that the first thing we notice about a person
is their eyes and the stars that reside in them
but let's get real: that's not how it works.
we notice smiles and laughter first
we notice the bands on someone's t-shirt
we notice the way their hair cascades
the way they stand or loud things that they say
we notice their mannerisms and their pose
their scraped-up knees and the brand of clothes that they drape themselves in
eyes are beautiful
no one has ever fully had the same, that I've seen
but no one ever notices them first, because eyes are like secrets
eyes are like windows
you can admire a house from afar
but you have to get close to peek inside
that's the part that we romanticize
it's the ability to approach and appreciate
but if you're just driving by, you aren't going to note a house's windows but rather its architecture and unique colors
whether it's wood panels or brick or stones
you notice the cars in the driveway before you think about the people inside
that's how it is when we think of eyes
because people are like houses
full of secrets and
when you're from the same neighborhood, the floorplans are all similar
but the insides and the paints and the pictures and the residents
are never the same.

one time I read something that said to fall in love with a person's eyes,
because they never change or get old
but I don't think the author of that quote ever thought of cataracts or clouding or colored contacts or blood vessels popping
everyone changes
we're like phases of the moon or the path of the planets around the sun
every single year we shift and grow close or apart
eyes are like stars, some nights they shine but they also fade away for bursts of time
what zodiac were you born under?
does it determine the secrets hidden in your pupils?
the stars that change their place in the night
are just as distant as a stranger's eyes
I hope that's not what people notice about me first

because I might not know who I am
but I know that I'd rather be recognized
as the girl with the band you like on her shirt
or the smile that is somehow contagious
or the laugh that fills a room
I don't want people to notice first
that I'm just another one of the millions of girls with green eyes.
if you're searching for stars, look somewhere else
because the universe makes me feel small
and if I'm gonna go to space then I'm more interested in the black holes
if you're curious, I'm an aquarius
it's a fixed sign but I've never really felt fixed in this world or in time
I'm a traveler of spectrums
I don't really know what that means
but I do know that it's not found within my eyes but rather the fluidity and gracelessness of my motions
it's in my fumbling tongue and off-white teeth
it's in my clothes and the skin underneath
it's in my favorite foods and the things that I drink

I'll walk as tall as I want to
I'll speak so loud that you have no choice but to focus on the things coming out of my mouth
I will continue to search for stars within my own eyes
because if I can't map them myself then I know that no stranger meeting me for the first time ever could.

my eyes are not stars
because I am a supernova
my eyes are not stars
because I am an explosion
my eyes are not stars
because I am made of a collection of chemicals in a state of reaction
and I can barely handle this one combustion
how am I supposed to be a congregation of them?

your eyes are not stars.
remember that.