Return to Us

We borrowed the stars— 
calcium for our teeth, 
iron for our blood, 
carbon laced in each breath we press against the dark. 

We walk, brittle and shining, 
wearing the debris of old collisions, 
the soft ash of suns 
that burned themselves out long “before” 
the word meant anything at all. 

In the marrow, in the nailbed, 
in the white gleam of an eye catching light— 
the stars pulse their call: 
Return to us. 

We are brief trustees of brilliance, 
temporary vessels of a flame 
we did not strike, 
cannot keep. 

One day, 
when the chest quiets, 
we will give back each atom, 
scatter them to dark soil, to sky, 
to dust adrift through things unnamed. 

And somewhere, 
in the cold ache of a young galaxy, 
the raw gold of our bones 
will vibrate into shape again.