Stars

The stars lied to me once
So I moved to a place without them
where the sky is painted over with tar
and the moon looks like a fossilized egg.
Broken
A shell of its former self.

So there I was
in a place with no light.
Nothing to show the way.
Nothing to cast shadows on the walls.
Where the absence of light doesn't have to be darkness.
Sometimes it's just nothing.

And I stayed there,
revelled in it for a while,
but it became hollow.
I became cool to the touch.
No spark to ignite the flames,
there was just
nothing.

So I moved on.
Back to where there was something.
To where the stars were no longer absent from the sky.
The heavens seemed closer than they had ever been
and I took what they said with a grain of salt.
But even so
having them was better than not.