To the Stars
When all I felt was trepidation and blindness I looked up at you,
And you, you shine and glow,
And seemed to live up in that endless
Black universe of infinite possibility and space.
And not just space the place,
But a physical openness and emptiness,
But at the same time not empty because
There were stars and nebulas and planets and
Suns and black holes to fill it.
It was empty and full at the same time and I want to be up there;
I want to caress Saturn’s rings to see if they'd cut my fingertips,
And stroke the ridged, damaged spine of an asteroid belt.
I want to be held by the dying light of a star
As it collapses into a black hole and sucks me in.
To see the brilliant colors of Venus
Sink and fade into muddy browns and violent oranges
To be swallowed up by simplest of things,
Emptiness, and float along into eternity
All the while wanting for more
You awaken in me adventure,
And with this adventure, with this desire
To know and feel all that comes with the human experience and more,
I find an ancient instinctual desire to be and exist more.
To reach for more stars with ever-shortening arms
And keep on reaching anyway
To travel to moons and far away galaxies
With nothing but sheer will power for fuel
And my own fragile self for a ship.
You've awakened a wanderlust in me
One that will only be sated by destruction or
The breathtaking beauty of an infinite universe and all its treasures,
And I hope to God I don't burn out in my atmosphere
An empty shell, holding nothing but an empty fuel tank and ripped metal siding
Before I can glimpse that which I know
Is waiting for me a million miles away.