How I Learned About Starlight

There was a tradition in my village

That was believed to be as old as time 

We gathered and watched lanterns as they lifted off to the sky 

Mimicking starlight, they became wishes of my people 

Lifting up then burning out with the flames itself

My mother wrote her wishes on leaves hoping they'd surpass the stars 

She wished that they'd go somewhere even farther

To a world, stories of which strangers had told her

But to no one else did that world live

It was an imaginary land for our people somewhere too far to exist 

But my mother painted it before my eyes and into my shaking hands 

It lived between my ribs, and on the height of shoulders

As I learned the meaning of Mercury from her 

Of its red, its shape and it's ever burning fire

She also told me stories of Jupiter 

She told me of its large being and shape, 

Making me promise never to shrink away 

Never to cut out part of me to fit into places I don't belong 

But the moon was what she talked of the most 

The one deprived of light

The one that lived in the shadows of the sun

And only in that shadows did it burn

So did my mother somehow

In her were lanterns brighter than what had ever touched the sky

She was the sun itself.

And I burned and learned under her of a world far from that

The one which I knew of

Where there were four walls not stars

A broken ceiling fan to make up for many moons

That had been long gone

The one that I had to get away from

She would sing to me

Just as she wished her mother sang to her,

Told her stories of the sky and the sea

Told her that it was completely alright to just be.