The only way I can cope now is to remember how looking into death

is looking into life. How the stars burnt out forever ago, and the sky

is one big sweep of white-yellow-red ash. Some stars we see as living

are dying supernova, others black holes, which is the space a life fitted

perfectly into and is now never-ending movement, devouring hunger,

and why do we count forward anyway? Why is birth not our endpoint?

Time is same as distance, and both about as real as most human ideas.

I never used to factor in time zones when I was all, ‘I’m going to Japan

to live quietly in the mountains, hear rain fall outside shrines at night.’

I would be in the future, up at dawn, eyes sticky, to try and catch you.

We’d never watch Strictly together again. Are we the opposite of stars?

By human-measured spacetime, you are my past. By night-sky logic,

we are undeniably existing, and burning our way on and out, in sync.

Is it cheating for me to take a plane to the future, to steal that extra time?