Secrets of the Stars

It started out
With a little bit of dust.
Not the dust you find on a book
Or under your bed.
No, it was moon dust,
A bitter swipe of silver powder across the mesa of my cheekbones.

You forge my limbs from the glittering veneers of the stars
And play a fiery game of connect-the-dots with comet tails.
Let two malachite planets be my eyes
That declare there is no Heaven;
Only the meandering Milky Way
Far, far below.
The inky vastness and all its infinite secrets
Pulse beneath my glassy skin.
And even though everyone knows
There is no air in space,
You press your mouth against my blue lips
And breathe life into empty lungs.
You uproot the smoldering halo
And lodge it into the center of my chest.

Now I am alive
But at what cost?
You whisper to me,
With icy breath,
Not to worry.
They will never find us up here.