I am walking in the sky,
lifting my feet the way you do
when stepping into cold water.
Below, the sea churns in its sleep,
pulling at the horizon,
looking for an even line.
Here,
names don’t matter—
the stars blink like tired old porch lights,
watching something
they’ve forgotten the reason for.
I stand barefoot under their thinning light,
feeling an indigo swell behind me,
its silence as blue as the sea.
I dream of a balloon—
purple, round as a promise.
I watch it turn into a speck, then nothing.
I remember that kind of floating,
the way the air is gentle,
like it doesn’t know what to do
with something so off balance.
And maybe I am that too—
adrift, a buoyant breath waiting to land,
too proud to fall, too restless to settle
into the dark, soft earth.
This is how autumn leaves must feel,
falling not because they have to,
but because the wind is ready to catch them.
I am not lost, you know—
I am just a drifter,
pretending that the stars know me well,
imagining them, bright-eyed,
following me home, dancing in the night.