A Teacup Full of Stories

Hi there! This is a poem I wrote a little while ago to enter into a competition. Unfortunately it didn’t place at all, but I thought I’d share it anyway as I was really proud of it! Feedback is always appreciated, and I hope you enjoy.

Eating Stars

When you eat stars

they get stuck in your teeth;

the last scraps of light that wriggling tongue tries to reach;

an irritation left over from the heat burning your gums,

and all the way down your throat,

trying to fuel the fire in your belly.

You eat stars now and then, as you have always done,

and the gaps in your teeth

shine with light when you smile.

 

But recently, in your handful of stars,

galaxies that fire up your laugh,

you caught up a black hole, like liquorice;

that, tar-like, coated your tongue and slid down your throat

to settle somewhere below your heart;

where it started emitting dark.

It engulfed your smile and teeth and laugh,

covering all with a stygian mark,

secreting emptiness that encompassed your heart,

obscuring the light of your stars.

 

Now you swallow stars by the handful like sweets,

barely showing them your teeth,

as you gulp down their burning in a vain attempt to re-ignite yourself,

hoping hordes of light could scour away the cobwebs from your lightless laugh,

until attempts to catch stars are your only craft,

but they cannot remove the obsidian from your teeth and smile,

and so the stars that made you bright slide into a disused pile,

their light fading until all you can eat is night.

Until there is no star in all the sky

that you have not tasted.

You are a connoisseur of stars,

gaining no delights,

as you mindlessly gorge yourself

in an attempt to make a light.