The Wandering Star

The Wandering Star
To Niko

We sat on a bench in the park
Near the fortress
And talked, and laughed,
And cried
As we watched the sky together
Waiting
For the wandering star
To appear out of nowhere
Igniting the night
And our hearts
With the promise of Meaning.

It only showed itself a few times,
Countable on the fingers
Of one hand
Drifting across the vault
Of our lonely adolescence
Like a harbinger of hope
In a land ravaged
By the tragedies of
Inner wars
Fought against the world
But mostly against
Ourselves.

Remember that summer night
In the small, sharply lit city
That was our home
When we saw it one last time
Before it went away
Forever?
We got up and greeted it
After having spoken
About the future.
We wanted to run away
Together
And live
Together,
As we had always been
Ever since that day
In early autumn
Many years before.

We stood there
Following its path
Through the darkness,
With eyes still innocent
Hearts still unbroken
Bodies still whole
Aware that
What it was actually doing
Was saying goodbye.

Ultimately,
We did run away
Together
And live
Together
And shattered ourselves
Against the ragged cliffs
Of life
Like desperate oceans
Looking for a shore
To reach and rest on.
Ripped ourselves
Apart
Against the famished
Teeth
Of the future we spoke of,
Until we were no longer
Innocent or
Unbroken
Or whole.

Every once in a while,
We’d raise our eyes
To the heavens
Seeking it
-The light-
Amidst dark clouds
Made hazy
By the tears
Welling up,
But it never came.

Until one day,
When, sitting with you
In a different park,
From a different life,
And a different city,
Both of us tainted,
Broken and
Unwhole
We laughed at something little,
And I looked into your eyes.
And saw it:
The wandering star!

I finally understood
We were mistaken
All these years
Thinking that it had
Abandoned us one summer
Night.
That it had fallen into
Nothingness
And vanished
When all it
Actually did was split
In two
And descend into us
One piece, in me
The other, in you.

So now
Somewhere
On the sky of our souls,
Where my horizons
Meet yours
The wandering star still travels
Ours, forever.

*No copying, publishing or reproduction of this text is allowed without permission. Mentioning the author and the source is mandatory: Alexandra Furnea – Gen Underground