Retrograde

Tonight, the stars remember your name.
They blink like guilty witnesses
to a love that once carved its constellation
across our skin.

I stand beneath their trembling light,
thinking how the moon still traces
the same slow arc it did
the night you said you were leaving—
and how I’d still cross that silver tide
just to meet you halfway again.

If the heavens could rewind,
I’d chart us differently—
no collisions this time:
No sharp comets of pride,
no eclipses of silence.
Only gentle orbits,
the steady hum of two hearts learning
how to move in rhythm again
in the quiet gravity of trust and faithfulness.

If the stars could turn backward,
I’d follow them into that undoing.
I’d walk every step in reverse—
unravel every fight,
unsay every word that left a bruise,
and meet you again at the point
where your laughter still belonged to me.

I would learn your phases by heart better,
how you wax when you laugh,
how you wane when you’re tired,
and I’d be softer when you disappear—
trusting you’d rise again,
as the moon always does,
even after its darkest night.

The sea still hums your lullaby.
I’d dive through its salt and sorrow
to find what we dropped—
a promise, perhaps,
or the way we used to speak
without needing words.

Let me be the tide that returns,
again and again,
to kiss the shore you’ve become.
Let me be the calm after our storm,
the sailor who learned
how to steer by your light.

If love is a kind of retrograde,
then I am its planet—
moving backward through every mistake,
through every silence I should’ve filled,
to stand beside you again.
Not as I was,
but as I should have been—
not louder, but truer.
Not endlessly,
but wisely.

And if I could find you once more
in the dark gravity of longing,
I would love you differently this time—
with steadier hands,
with light enough
to guide us forward again;
gentler, more patient,
and the one who holds your world steady
even when all the stars
decide to fall.