From What the Stars Are Made We Cannot Hold

In the screaming days of my youth
I’d traded honesty for a sense of pride
But my selfish streak
Had finally reached its peak
When an ego knows no bound
Glory gets crushed without a sound
From what the stars are made we cannot hold
The years don’t make you wise, they make you old
So… heading where I was for whatever reason
Staring into shops and restaurant windows
Ignoring the rain and the season
The wind and its echoes
It’s then that I saw her
Sitting in a busy dinner
Like a lonely prime number
In her tattered Salvation Army sweater
She was lost among the noisy crowd
Her silence twice as loud
The room heavy with her breathing
The way her mouth would just sing
I could have stopped but I kept on walking
Sometimes the fear is greater than the calling
I understood I could no longer live for myself
And put the rest of the world on a shelf
And then the calm after the storm
A calm that’s quiet and worrisome
The door opened behind me
She came out in a hurry
And I headed home
Our long shadows not quite touching