polaris

In a world that seems to be constantly in motion, the stars have remained a steady source of light and hope for humankind in the darkness of the night.

Caroline Chou (she/her) is a teen writer with a love for leitmotifs and magical realism. Her work has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Writers and published in The Aurora Journal, among others. When she’s not writing, you can find her reading fantasy, playing golf, or marveling at the way time passes when she procrastinates. She’s occasionally on Instagram @clswriting.

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to bathe in the milky way is to

accept your hair turning silver.

it is to let moonlight frost 

across the back of your neck, 

to smile as the cosmos slips 

into your veins, watch the sun set

in silence. dip a palm into the frigid

lakes and see how the current

flows. the stars hold certain truths

that they release into the night.

look for them. here, they lie 

beneath aurora’s gaze. perhaps their

wisdom is in their silence and the

turning of the tides. look for them.

there, they lie unmoving, there and

there between the snowflakes. they

hold still the way nothing else can.

perhaps only their gaze can cool the

pulsing of human hearts. 

for they alone remain stones 

in a temporary world whose dreams

can’t help but spiral into infinity.

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