The Constellation of Forgotten Dreams

Beneath the velvet shroud of night,
the sky unfolds its ancient scroll,
a tapestry of silver light,
where dreams reside, both lost and whole.

Each star, a spark of what once was,
a wish that trembled on the brink,
a hope that faltered, paused, because
the world demanded more than think.

The Keeper of the Night, they say,
collects these embers, faint and frail,
and binds them in a cosmic sway,
to weave a story, vast and pale.

Here, dreams of youth, unspoken, gleam—
the artist’s brush, the poet’s pen,
the dancer’s leap, the builder’s beam,
all scattered now, like grains of sand.

And there, the dreams of lovers’ sighs,
of hands that never learned to hold,
of whispered truths and half-formed lies,
of hearts that grew too tired, too cold.

Do they still whisper, these distant fires?
Do they still call to those below?
Or are they merely funeral pyres,
for what we dared not let us grow?

I stand beneath this vaulted dome,
and trace the patterns with my gaze,
each star a mirror, a fleeting home,
for dreams I left in younger days.

The Keeper stirs, the heavens hum,
a melody both sweet and sad,
a hymn for all that might have come,
for all the lives we might have had.

“Reclaim them,” sighs the midnight breeze,
“or let them burn, as stars must do.
For dreams are neither bound nor freed,
they simply are, as are you.”

And so I linger, caught between
the pull of what was and what’s to be,
a wanderer in this vast, unseen
constellation of memory.

Perhaps the dreams we leave behind
are not for us to grasp or own,
but gifts to light the paths we find,
when we are lost, and far from home.

So let them shine, these distant spheres,
these fragments of our former selves,
a map of all our hopes and fears,
a guide to where the future delves.

For in the end, the night will keep
our dreams alive, though we may stray,
and in its arms, we’ll find our sleep,
beneath the stars, where dreams still play.

- Khushi Kaul