They do not speak of dying,
not in the quiet grocery line,
not beneath the flicker of café lights,
not when the sky loosens its robe of stars,
and oh, what a grave mistake.

For death is not some villain in a cloak,
but the oldest truth,
the shadow stitched to your soles,
the hush behind the heartbeat.
And if you dare to meet it,
not with dread, but with reverence,
you live.

Not someday.
Now.

With a fire that does not ask for permission,
you will step out of the anger rooms,
shed the shroud of “what will they think,”
and walk barefoot into your wild life,
untamed, imperfect, and exquisitely yours.

A child who has tasted death’s breath,
returns with eyes older than calendars,
not brave, but lucid.
Not reckless, but awake.

You see, it is not courage,
to sip the rain like wine,
to laugh so hard the stars come closer,
it is logic.
It is sense.
It is the compass of those who know the road ends,
so they sing while walking.

So love.
Not as a performance, but as a pulse.

Learn.
Not for praise, but for wonder.

Taste.
The peach, the kiss, the grief, the salt.

And leave behind no legacy but this:

That you were here.
Truly.
Madly.
Moment by moment, as a brief candle,
burning unapologetically in the wind.

I write tonight beneath the wheeling stars
Their frostfire whispers brushing silent scars
The kind that never broke the skin
But carved their longing deep within.

The sky is vast, unending, far too wide
For feet like mine that never learned to stride
Beyond the fence, beyond the hill
Beyond the echoing ache of still.

I’ve loved the night since I was young
Its velvet hush, its silver tongue
While others chased the warmth of day
I let the midnight strands guide my way.

Each star a spark, a breath, a tale
An invitation drawn in elder flame
And I, naive, with ink and dream
Would write to them with love unseen.

“Wait” I beg “please wait for me
Let me reach your beauty ever changing
Allow me to walk your jewelled clouds
Your endless tales, under sol born breeze.”

But time is cruel to dreamers late
To those who dance with idle fate
I’ve grown too old, or time too swift
My wings have grown weak, heavy, still.

I’ve never touched the Martian dust
Or kissed Europa's frozen crust
The moons I mapped inside my mind
Remain unsailed, untouched, yet kind.

And so every night I step outside
And drink in the starlit heavens with open pride.
They are not mine, and never shall they be
And still they light my life and make me free.

Amidst them is my love, a beautiful star
Who burned too brightly, and too far
She heard my dreams and kissed my head
And she said, “You’ll get there. You just… won’t land.”

She is gone now, lost to time’s own sea
Just another ghost that stays with me
Her light, a comet’s fleeting tail
Her image, the breeze beyond the pale.

Oh love, oh night, oh my loving endless sky
I promise to keep the dream, even if I cannot to you fly
And though my body may die on the ground
My soul still orbits, and flies unbound.

Let the void echo with my laugh
Let my love be carved on my epitaph
Let me live with the memory of what it can be
To write to stars that will never write to me

So here’s my letter, here’s my breath
Penned at last, as I lay so close to death
Let my whisper join countless in the cosmic tide
Of our souls that longed, that loved, that tried.

Keep it, stars, for when we go
Mere particles drifting in Sol's glow
And one day when upon us you gleam
Know you were always much more than a dream.

and neither the moon nor sun
can comfort me;
one heard my stories about you,
and the other my prayers for you.
The rain could not escape my memory
that you liked the monsoon,
The winds only held gently the expectation
of ruffling your soft hair.
The stream mimicked your laughter
which was etched deeply in my heart.
The sand under my feet told me when it met you
and the salt in the ocean whispered to me that
you threw your wishes as promises,
but wouldn't tell me what those were;
something about secrecy.
The air during my late night walks
reminded me that you walked these paths,
The flowers gushed about your voice,
the trees your jokes;
and then everything
crumbled.
as my mind had to remind me that you died,
and your image I had to forget for my sake.
snatched away so quickly,
I hate that, I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.

When red apple roses rise from my head,
Know that the earth has embraced me, now dead.
I'll rest where roots wrap my bones in the ground,
And bloom through my silence, no longer bound.

Their petals still whisper the things I once said;
In death, I will part with the cage of my heart.
So grieve in my garden, but know it’s my home,
For beauty will grow where my love ever roams.

In the wet forest,
A carcass cradled by moss.
Life feeds on its loss.

I read of your passing and paused mid-bite.
The world seemed to grow colder, but you knew
it was time to begin your next adventure, one
far beyond this familiar world we had shared.

Scientist — no, pioneering champion —  
in the fight against cancer and diabetes,
you were humble even in your brilliance.
A giant among men, a heart greater still.

I can only think of each time you passed
me in the hallway, your shy smile luminous
even as you ducked past me as if afraid
I might start speaking about what we had both

lost so long ago. You had always been my late dad’s
favorite boss, and I remember the thoughtful albeit brief
email you sent me when the cancer took him, expressing
your sorrow that a great scientist and fellow man had left

this cruel world far too soon. Now you join him
and I picture the two of you, both clad in white lab coats
colliding in an awkward embrace, eager to update one another
on all that the other had missed from the other side.

There may be winners amongst losers,
there may be losers amongst winners,
for no one knows what future holds.

You may be fighting death like crazy,
or scream: Please, turn me into dust!!!
What’s better for you - you won’t know.

But do not worry - there is justice
for the unfairness of this world.
For you won't die if you are born.

On this day celebrating
or reproaching love, I can only
recall each year you were still here,
clutching a fragrant bouquet for mom

never mind the allergies that flared
even as she, beaming, placed each
one in the dark green sturdy vase
certain to hold the life within

Now she sits in the gloom
of a room that is too cold, empty
nester forced to befriend the shadows
and suppress the urge to burrow

into small cracks, senses heightened
with the absence of those fragrant
bouquets that never failed to remind her of the fullness of home, of you