a star burnt out

it is hesitantly in that ochre evening
I present you with a dead star,
rotten gold dust peeling from the hope
I’d placed so carefully in the sky.

even while you muted my ambitions,
I kept trying to throw that star back up.
every time it fell, it was by your touch.

now I stand before you,
hands glittering with stardust
only to ask: “why?”