When I marry my future wife, I’m going to buy her a star and name it after her
To remind her that she is the universe’s most perfect accident.
The fragmented planets, stars, and meteorites reunited after years of separation,
Light years away from each other until they finally exploded then recombined and
Made her.
When stargazers at the Griffith Observatory glance up at the
Freckled sky and point their stubby fingers at her namesake, it’ll remind everyone that
She is a star, my star, the everlasting sun to my orbiting earth
In daylight, when the dandelion dust drifts in her haloed rays,
And during nightfall, when the crickets’ chirping greets the moon with a chaotic lullaby.
The joining of our hands will be the deuterium and tritium
Yielding helium, rippling waves of warm radiation through my skin.
And yes, there may be trillions and trillions of stars out there, too many that you can’t find her
Blinking faintly behind Ursa Minor, but after years of hearing about all the star-crossed lovers
Immortalized in an endless game of connect-the-dots, I’ll finally be able to map out my own.
On the night of the Ursids’ descent, I’ll cast my line into the sea of wishes, my ship bobbing
Through the moon’s glassy reflection of the water until I reel in
My dream come true. And my shooting star, she’ll soar
Over the Milky Way’s fallen bridge and crash down to earth,
Bathing me in her stardust.
The rings from the planets she used to be a part of will always outshine the
One resting on her finger, but I will only have one ring on mine and
It will be hers. I will be hers.
Her small astronaut,
Her tiny explorer that only cares about one tiny star.
Meily Tran (she/her) is a high school senior and aspiring creative writing major from Southern California. Throughout her years in high school, she has contributed to her school's newspaper, creative magazine, and slam poetry club. Currently, she is working on expanding the reach of her work outside of school by submitting to competitions and literary magazines (and universities, if college applications count). Most of her works are first drafted at 1 AM and are inspired by her tragic sapphic love life, sporadic identity crises, and beloved pet chihuahua. Other than writing, she is interested in music, technical theater, and LGBTQ+ rights!