we're sitting under the midnight sky behind your house.
hours ago, you pulled me up the creaky wooden ladder
to your parents' old telescope,
nestled in the corner of a room packed with cardboard boxes
and faded magazine pictures plastered on the wall.

they radiate echoes of a lifetime, one engraved on your soul.
you don't belong here, they scream.
i hope, dearly, that they're wrong.
i know you hear them too - you must.
after all, it's your soul trapped within these papered-over walls.

elsewhere, there's a universe untouched,
a world of infinite stars waiting for someone.
of course there's a limit, somewhere,
but i won't be the one to find it.
i promise.

you showed me your stars;
all i have to do is keep them alight.