Remember Yourself

I have stood on every shoreline Earth could grow— watched civilizations peel off like snakeskin, hands red and raw, throwing words into the wind. What was it, they asked, what was the answer? This morning, I walked into a diner in Kansas, found a cup of coffee that tasted like 1983, and sipped the ghosts of a thousand endings. People talk like birds now, high-pitched and fast, forgetting their wings. I remember sitting cross-legged in Greece, listening to poets invent gods out of clay. They believed the world was a fistful of stars scattered by children before bedtime, and that we were made to gather them. This last time, I come unmasked—no silver suit, no cryptic message carved in crop fields. I leave no warnings of doom, no demands for change. All I have is the echo that never leaves— a glittering hope beneath the static. The song that says: There’s life, there’s life—up here, down there, and somewhere between the lonely notes of what could have been and what still waits. I’ll take my place in the sky once more, watch as you blink back, eyes wide, and see what you’ve always been: Starmen too. Every one of you, already knowing the tune, just trying to remember the words.