The Life Cycle of a Star

They say I could only sleep when wrapped in your arms.

I was small, chocolate eyed and wide mouthed, and

I soaked in every warm thing just to pour it into you: 

skinned knees, heartaches, and flushed fears turned

movie nights and popsicles and what once was truth. 

When you told me of your life before, it was always

exotic lands and brash bouts of bravery, laughing,

lithe, and full of light, a novel of novelties. No man

nor city, nor night could hold you. You were California 

sun made solid, lipstick and perfume and 

I believed in you. But--

there are things I could not see with a sunbeam

for a mother: The way you can only glow if 

you have someone to burn. The way you shrink,

terrified, in the promise of darkness. The way you

will always choose supernova, even if I wrap you

in every shred of leaf and bough I've grown

for you. The way I can only watch you do it

from a million miles away until my tears soak

all the fields of this scorched earth, knowing

that the California sun, all lipstick and light,

it hasn't shone for years, only slipped silent

through space too slowly for me to stop.