Counting Stars

Where the edge of the universe lay,

And all of the stars were counted and confirmed

Into proper categories to stay,

I found myself and a hastily packed suitcase

Standing in the doorway of a rented room.

As I watched the rain drip from my nose,

Creating dark craters in the worn carpet,

I contemplated just what birthed my woes.

And realized then that I was in that apartment,

And the scientific method said so,

All at the fault of you.

Satisfied with the flawed test results

I lay upon the bed to admire my faults

And stared out the lonely window.

There were no stars.

On the breeze that blew in from outside

I swore I smelt the grass upon we laid

That sweet spring night oh so long ago

When to the world I swore I’d love you

Until there were no stars left to count.

But look where that promise led, my dear!

Look how broken hearted I am as I lie here

Just as how to you I had lied that night.

But how was I to know that I wasn’t right?

Did we not deceive each other into believing

That what we had was not simply dreaming?

But now all the stars are numbered

And so are our days.

In my grief I never once cared to notice

That the warm shirt I wore was yours once,

Or that the ring on my left finger

Was of your promise a reminder.

In my blindness I cast my eyes to the walls

And noticed something peculiar.

In the smooth paint I saw puckerings

And I couldn’t decide what they were.

To feed the curiosity of my modern mind

I approached one like a cat to its prey

And was astonished at my find.

Believing it to be impossible,

I scratched off the old paint

And discovered a small star glowing faint,

The remnants of a child’s dream to confine the sky

To everything within their naive eyes.

Stickers on the wall to create free wishes,

Never once of their falsehood suspicious.

Around the room I scanned my eyes,

And finding yet more without surprise

I set about to scratching the rest free.

My fingers raw, nail ragged, hours gone,

I turned off the light with newfound certainty.

The darkness was gone, banished by the lights

So small, so fragile, but countless and bright.

My body shook, the tears ran freely

As quickly as shooting stars on a spring night

And everything that once was suddenly

Shattered.

No matter what computers had said,

No matter what scientists did to fill their heads,

No matter how long they peered through their telescope,

Nothing they found could have created this hope.

In all their wise blindness they had overlooked

A child’s secret dreams covered by paint.

And here was I, following their method,

Thinking myself to be perfected,

Giving up that endless chase for meaning

Thinking it to be so demeaning

When a child could show me how far I’d gone awry

Because there were still stars left to count in the sky.