The Astronomer of Lost Moments

He sets his telescope not toward the heavens,

but inward—

to that secret firmament that stretches

behind the ribs,

between thought and silence.

Here, seconds drift like orphaned comets,

bright tails dissolving into dark.

Here, minutes turn to dust,

scattering into galaxies no one else remembers.

He is the astronomer of lost moments.

I. The Maps of Absence

Others chart rivers,

roads,

kingdoms.

He charts what slipped through trembling hands.

A blink too long.

A step not taken.

A name that quivered at the edge of the tongue

but never crossed the lips.

His atlas is not made of parchment,

but of ache.

Every regret a star,

every hesitation a cluster,

every silence an orbit that still circles him,

relentless.

II. The Constellations

There is a constellation for the kiss not given—

a faint arch of light shaped like a trembling mouth.

There is a nebula for the question unasked,

still burning with the bruised colors of fear and longing.

There is the Crown of Unfinished Letters,

each star a word never posted,

still folded in the envelopes of the mind.

There is the River of Departures,

a long trail of cold fire,

made of trains missed,

ferries departed,

doors closed just as his hand reached for them.

And there is the Black Hole of Hesitation,

so heavy with silence

that nothing escapes its pull.

Entire days collapse there,

dense with everything he could not say.

III. The Tools of his Trade

He does not own grand observatories.

His telescope is a ribcage.

His notebook is a pulse.

His ink is the thin black thread

between wanting and failing.

Every night he sharpens his vision

on the grindstone of memory,

trying to catch the faint shimmer

of all that the world has abandoned.

IV. The Naming

He does not grieve them.

Not always.

Instead he names them with tenderness.

The Almost.

The If Only.

The Not Yet.

The Nevermore.

Each name a soft benediction,

a way of saying:

I see you.

You are not gone.

V. The Weight of Light

Others think the sky empty.

They walk beneath their days

believing nothing remains

once it has passed.

But he knows better.

Every missed embrace still travels outward,

every unopened door still swings in the wind,

every laugh stifled in the throat

still pulses somewhere,

in some unseen spectrum.

When he closes his eyes,

he feels their weight against his skin.

A warmth like memory,

a chill like regret,

a hum like a heartbeat lost in echo.

VI. The Mirror Sky

Sometimes he wonders

if people are made not of stardust—

as scientists insist—

but of all they left undone.

The love they swallowed.

The roads they never walked.

The versions of themselves

that turned away at the last minute.

Perhaps we are mosaics of absences,

held together by longing,

lit by what we failed to hold.

If so,

then the lost are not lost.

They are galaxies unto themselves,

infinite,

unfinished,

burning just out of reach.

VII. The Keeper

He is weary.

He is lonely.

But still he watches.

Still he listens.

Because someone must.

Someone must bear witness

to the light of what never was.

He is the astronomer of lost moments—

patient,

tender,

faithful to the vanishing.

And though no one else dares look into that sky,

he has learned this truth:

Stars do not disappear when unseen.

They wait.

And sometimes,

when the night is quiet enough,

they shine back into him,

gentle as forgiveness.