A Sky Full of Borrowed Stars

I never had stars of my own—

just echoes borrowed from distant skies.

Wishes I made on someone else’s constellations,

prayers whispered into another’s twilight.

My sky was always patchwork—

a quilt sewn from fragments of others’ hopes,

stitched tight with longing and the threads of maybe.

I looked up and saw light that was never mine

but shimmered as if it knew my name.

I held dreams like borrowed books,

spines cracked from hands before mine,

margins full of someone else’s sorrow.

I read them anyway,

as if the stories belonged to me.

There were nights

I stitched hope into moonlight,

threaded grief through Orion’s belt,

and wore the stars like borrowed jewelry—

not mine,

but beautiful enough to forget.

Love felt like stargazing through frosted glass—

so close,

yet cold with distance.

I reached,

but space does not bend for yearning.

Still, even borrowed stars burn bright.

Even secondhand light

can guide you when your own hands tremble.

So I gather their shimmer like scattered coins,

toss them into the fountain of my chest,

make a wish not for ownership,

but for peace.

Peace in the knowing

that some skies aren’t meant to stay,

that even temporary constellations

can lead you home.

I do not need a universe

to hold my name.

I need only this moment—

where the light falls softly,

and I dare to glow back.