Recycled Light

Recycled Light

I am made

of second chances—

not just skin and sinew,

but remnants

of exploded stars,

the ash of ancient furnaces

that once held gravity in their hands

and let go.

Hydrogen came first—

simple, clean.

But everything else I am

was forged in chaos:

carbon for breath,

iron for blood,

calcium for bone,

gold I’ll never wear.

These atoms

have wandered—

drifting across galaxies,

curling through nebulae,

riding comets,

maybe settling

once

in a creature I’ll never know:

a stranger,

a lover,

an alien

who dreamed in colors

I can’t imagine.

When I say

I don’t know myself completely,

I mean it literally.

I am the sum

of borrowed particles,

cosmic hand-me-downs,

a walking archive

of a universe

that never throws anything away.