Some times
you lie in the upper bunk bed in a room at the uppermost floor of the building, staring
out the window and listen to your pulse through the pillow
and the rhythm grows rapid as if
heart beats are wild beasts hiding in the forest and just now realized you are observing
and you realize
your own heart is so
foreign
far away
a creature you have captured in the prison of your lungs
so maybe that is an odd thought
you know, like life,
life is odd, let me present to you
existential crises dawning upon me as I desperately try to fall sleep
I am scared of a great many things
and what I fear the most may be
the future
the future is pandora’s pithos of choices and mistakes waiting to be made, and
all of my uncertainty
some times
thinking about the future is
a little overwhelming
stars are overwhelming too
I am no astronomer but let me talk about stars for a bit anyway
in their journey through our ceiling of sky, they slash through the firmament
like
scars
exactly like scars
did you know the stars are so far away
that the light we see right here, right now,
is the light of centuries, millenias ago?
their tracks are scratches through time and space and
some times
I forget they are the ones to stay still
and we are the ones going in circles
and
our bodies are made of star dust
and our souls, of stories
did anyone ever say
reality wasn’t capable of being poetic, well, it is
my point
is this:
and this is important
because when everything else seems too important,
take a deep breath of the night air
look at the stars
or just
breathe
think about stars
stars
no matter how catastrophical the mistakes
my future holds
it won’t matter to the stars
we can’t even touch the stars
even if the earth got blown apart by nuclear weapons
the stars will be okay
and although I hope earth will be okay, too
and that, honestly, no one as much as pokes a nuclear weapon
it’s a little nice to think about that no matter how badly I should mess up
the stars don’t care
they care so little
they don’t care to update us with fresh light, they’re just throwing their pasts at us, they don’t care if we want it or not,
it’s what we get
the sun though
the sun is a star
that cares
about us
and seven other planets that don’t even contain life
so
we’re kind of insignificant
and that is so important
because
under the protection of our insignificance we can
build civilizations and create art and drink rain water and cut our hair and read books and
make mistakes
we just have to
give ourselves room to be human
at least
most of the time
because we are citizens of stardust and story
so
breathe deep
sleep well
