I charted you through all the autumn years,
A pattern drawn beyond my mortal hand,
And named each trembling light through salted tears—
Too far for fragile hearts to understand.

They told me constellations never change,
That ancient stars hold steady in their place,
But you kept drifting, beautiful and strange—
A geometry no soul could hope to trace.

I built my telescope of want and wire,
Kept vigil through each sleepless, starlit night,
Convinced that if I focused my desire,
I’d draw you close enough to feel your light.

But distances are hungry, silent things
That swallow words before they reach the ear,
And time clips even the most faithful wings
Until what’s far becomes what once was near.

The astronomers would say you’re long since dead,
That what I love is but a ghost of flame,
The echo of a burning thing that bled
Its last breath to the dark before I came.

And still I mapped you, gave your angles form,
Drew lines between your silence and your fire,
Found order in each elemental storm,
And gleaned frail meaning from a vanished desire.

My neighbors thought me holy or insane,
This man who charted heavens on his wall,
Who swore he felt your heat like desert flame,
Though you were never there to shine at all.

Tonight I caught my reflection in the glass—
A constellation of its own design:
These age-flecked spots like stars, the veins that pass
As nebulae through flesh long past its prime.

Perhaps you were the one who charted me—
Who watched this mortal flicker, burn, and fade,
Who traced my slow extinction patiently,
And I, mere stardust: sentient, afraid.