And when all the bright lights fade, there'll still be stardust in her veins

It is running through her. She needs no blood for then she would have something to shed. A snake sheds skin, a butterfly sheds chrysalis and caterpillar alike, the things in metamorphosis it needs no longer. A dandelion seeds. But it does not shed

It waits for someone to blow, whether breath of a human or breath of the wind or just the breadth of time and gravity

She is the stars’ dandelion, a night gazer

We’re all made of stardust you know

But in our mental light pollution of darkness, we lose ourselves

She sees carousels of knowledge swirling with fear, in an iridescent delicacy that only comes with ideas that aren’t and will never be tangible.

How big is the ocean? How big the sky, the earth, the universe? How far out can we go, but also how far in?

If every night she lit a lantern, the night sky would sing for them. The trees would catch them. They would sparkle even in absence of the moon.

One day they go out, light no longer

Today is that day

She is

Stifled

And just so small

But when all the bright lights fade, there'll still be stardust in her veins