Constellations

I don't write poetry very often any longer though I have an enormous backlog of it. For me, poetry isn't something I can smash out like a short story. It has to have a 'feeling' before I can make the words come out. Probably a weird idea, but *shrugs*.

I wrote this poem for a friend whom I love dearly. She, like many of us, doesn't always see that she is is greater than the sum of her parts. We too often focus on the flaws we see and not how amazing we are to others. She is unique and beautiful, just like a solar system of diverse planets.

For punctuation lovers, I apologize now. I rarely put punctuation in my poetry, especially not on the first draft and sometimes never.

You are an uncharted solar system
A blue jewel lying in the darkness of space
The years I study you grant me myriad
Insights into your complexities
Enough to fill volumes
 
Your heart, broken
Shattered over the years by the blows of an uncaring universe
Has formed a Kuiper belt that one must pass through, never unscathed
It is full of hard, frozen pieces that seek only to protect
But it belies what is within


Your many moods, thoughts, and loves all twirl in a ballet
Around the fierce blue of your soul
So many planets that I could never hope to know them all
Even were I to dedicate my life to it


There is a small lonely planet on the outer edge
It was formed first, clouded over with time as you forgot
The very beginnings of you
Only needing the dawn to show its loveliness
 
Another nearby, cluttered with crystalline towers
Frozen memories that you dare not touch
For fear they will not be as beautiful
As the moment you captured them
They sit in stasis, awaiting the fire
 
A hard planet, noxious and intense
Volcanoes exploding in an atmosphere
Of choking fumes seeking
To ruin the world should one come near
All your hate condenses here
Creating a sphere of death
 
Yet another, blue and green
Cool to the eyes and teaming with life
Your imagination and creativity abound
This world is so vast, always changing
Bubbling over with creatures never seen
 
Many planets, all unique and encapsulating
Parts of you that you may not realize
Are so vital to your story, to who you are
And are so beautiful, even the ones that
Show you flawed and scarred
 
So many will come close
And see perhaps one or two of these worlds
But never truly see your mysterious whole
But some, like me, will strive to learn
The beauty of you and be enraptured by
All we are granted to learn
 
For we are each our own solar system
Spinning together in a dark, unforgiving universe
Waiting for those intrepid explorers
Who dream of knowing more
Than their tiny view allows.
Our souls forming constellations