Astronaut

The first train left before the dawn,

I heard the whistle cut the cold.

I kept my back against the station wall,

Counting lies I’d already told.

A streetlight buzzed like a dying star,

Rain slid black across the glass.

I lit a match to see my hands,

But the flame went out too fast.

Chorus

They call me the astronaut—

Not because I fly, but because I’m gone.

No tether to pull me home,

Just a vacant sky to wander on.

I walked the alleys where the sirens hum,

Found a wallet in the mud.

Someone’s life in faded bills,

A photograph smeared with blood.

The river swelled like a restless lung,

Its current whispering “disappear.”

I thought of you and the promises

That never made it clear.

They call me the astronaut—

Not because I fly, but because I’m gone.

No tether to pull me home,

Just a vacant sky to wander on.

Every door I pass is another world

Where the lights stay warm and low.

But I keep moving through the blackout streets,

Afraid of what I’d know.

I reached the edge where the freight yards end,

Metal groans beneath the frost.

If there’s gravity in a place like this,

It’s only for the lost.

So call me the astronaut—

Weightless in a suit of sin.

I burn through night like a satellite,

And never land again