we are dead stars by Zo Estacio (17, Philippines)

                              we are dead stars

a unified glory / a pre-ordained tragedy / an exhalation of grief / and the taste of sorry is familiar 

                              in / our lips ​

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hold the breaks in the canopies / we are a sea of all the things / we are obligated to believe in / we are stratified dreams

                              we are the filaments of twice-dead souls

sensical blood burns and our prayers / are bone-deep / we are sweetness in the shadow-dance of sunlight / a justified blindness as we hold the words / like they are ours

                              we are the swelling silence of the universe
        
the surreal wakefulness / we are silver-smeared reverence that howls in the creases / of thin flower petals

                              we tantalized / the moon 

is a devilish serenity, a pure misalignment / a cosmic legacy in unrecovered fascicles / we are a boundless divinity / too dense for mourning, too bitter for breaths.

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