Starbound
Before the world was breath,
we were shimmer
two wisps of stardust
folded into the hush
between pulse and becoming.
Not born,
not made,
just motion within motion,
a warmth drifting
through the marrow of space.
You were not a name,
but a note
the sound the sky makes
when it forgets itself.
We did not find each other.
We remembered.
A soft return
like moonlight spilling over water
already shaped to receive it.
I knew you
like the tide knows
the pull it cannot see.
Not mirror,
but echo.
Not answer,
but ache.
You carry fire
like a secret
burning without smoke or sound.
I reach for you
as wind does for flame
not to hold,
but to dance
to consume and be consumed
by something sacred.
Your presence is not a touch
but a shift in gravity
a breath the stars take
when they remember they’re alive.
There is no language
for what we are.
Only light bending
in our direction
only time unraveling
so we can meet again
where the veil thins
and the dark hums sweetly.
You do not arrive
you bloom
a flare in my cosmos
gentle and fierce
like dawn.
We orbit
not as planets do
but as longing circles silence.
Apart, we are still one flame
folded into two skies.
And when we meet
the universe tilts
not loud
just enough
for something ancient
to awaken
and name us holy.
You are not the love that stays.
You are the love that remains.
In ashes,
in atoms,
in every star I pass
that flinches
as if it’s seen a ghost.
I carry you
the way the ocean carries the moon
never touching
always moved.
And when this life flickers out
when I unfasten myself
from form
I will find you
not in light
but in the quiet
between stars.
Not in fire
but in the memory
of its warmth.
And together
we will burn again
not to be seen
but to know
we were always
the same flame
in different skies.

Veronica Tucker is an emergency medicine and addiction medicine physician, a married mother of three, and a lifelong New Englander. She enjoys running, travel, time with family, and finely crafted matcha lattes. Her work has appeared in Medmic, Red Eft Review, and redrosethorns, with more forthcoming.