Dead Stars, written and read by Adely Mone

Out here there's a bowing even the trees are doing.

Winter's icy hand at the back of all of us.

Black bark, slick yellow leaves, a kind of stillness that feels so mute.

It's almost in another year.

I am a hearth of spiders these days, a nest of trying.

We point out the stars that make Orion as we take out the trash.

The rolling containers, a song of suburban thunder.

It's almost romantic as we adjust the waxy blue recycling bin.

Until you say, man, we should really learn some new constellations.

And it's true.

We keep forgetting about Antleas and Torres, Draco, LeSerta, Hyder, Lyra, Lynx.

But mostly we're forgetting where Dead Stars too.

My mouth is full of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising.

To lean in this spotlight of street light with you, toward what's larger within us, toward

how we were born.

Look, we are not unspectacular things.

We've come this far.

We've survived this much.

What would happen if we decided to survive more?

To love harder?

What if we stood up with our synopsis and flesh and said, no, no to the rising tides?

...