Stars

I can't afford to be optimistic.

I've broken my own neck searching for stars when there were none to be found.

Hope is my unsent letters.

Hope is the numbers I've dialed a hundred times but never called.

Hope is refusing to go through the breakup ritual, because I refuse to believe that's the end of the story.

But it is.

The stars were merely flickers of dying dreams.

I remember when I saw them for the first time.

Reflected in the river.

Held in the branches of the budding trees like dewdrops of sunlight.

Steady,

Sharp,

Hopeful.

I felt as if I could gather them into my arms and press them between the pages of a book

Hope lured me in.

Hope seduced me, then left me for dead.

Yet still I crawl back to her.

I wish I could stop.

I wish I wouldn't keep gazing up until my neck breaks again and again and again.

But I can't keep my eyes off of them.

Off of hope.

So what now?

Do I accept my brokenness

Do I keep falling

Do I give up on healing?

What will it take for me to reach hope?

What will it take for more than a brief affair with the stars?