We pretend we are not small,

or ruined,

a speck of stardust

amid infinite universes,

impossible and yet,

here we are, pretending

that love and all its chaos

is, somehow, new—

that we are naked

and newborn in this feeling,

although I suppose it is a resurrection,

a lightning strike,

and we are all pieces

of those we have loved before,

those we have lost

and let go, all of it

stitched into our hearts

with carefulness and callousness,

unfortunate surgery, anesthetized

by all the names

we can no longer say aloud,

the soft ache of old wounds—

this, too, is a gift,

an act of creation,

a reminder that sometimes

the stars align,

and that the work of the heart

is an inscrutable secret.