Moondust

she was born on a normal and unassuming tuesday

in a small county hospital in the north of virginia

and even though she lived there forever

it wasn’t where she grew up, her childhood was spent

in the stars, she learned to walk

tangled in the belts of constellations,

saw her first day of school out the window

of a rocket ship and made her best friend on the moon.

when she was in grade school there were others

who spent their lives chasing galaxies and exploring

planets light years away, but with each passing year

more and more of them faded away

until only she was left and no one lived

in space besides her and the stars.

one day she looked at her hands

and realized that they were nothing more than misty

shadows, a whisper of what they had once been

try as she might she couldn’t keep herself whole

and all of a sudden it was too much, and she cried

until she couldn’t, and that was the day

that she landed.

and she made a life for herself back on the ground

in a small town in the north of virginia, a perfectly normal

and unassuming life where she tried to forget

the moondust, how it moved when she danced,

to live with wanderlust that she couldn’t hide.

and she would have told you that she was happy.

she died on a normal and unassuming friday

in a small county hospital in the north of virginia,

exhausted from a lifetime of pretending.

and even though she lived there forever

she didn’t feel at home. even before she closed her eyes

for the final time she had left us for someplace better,

someplace where she had never left the stars.