You waltz by
Zipping through my stratosphere
Leaving almost tangible trails
Streams of fog and particles of water
Falling slowly down to my earth
You come in and out of orbit
Following a reckless collision course
Sometimes I could reach out and touch you

Floating through space feels like lounging on a pool float. True, your float is no pool float.
It’s a slab of discarded metal lost in the wasteland of the universe, and it’s pulling you with it, too.
In another time - a whole other life -

Billions of miles away, the Oort Cloud orbited the Sun in silence. The cloud, consisting of thousands upon thousands of chunks of ice and rock, formed the edge of the Solar System, millions of miles past Neptune.

I hear walkie talkies – kusssshhhhh.
People talking, “Blah, blah, blah, bleep.”
I hear toilets flush.
Basketballs bounce and swoosh.
This place is full of it: empty. 

i could break beneath the weight of
atmosphere.
these stars, balanced atop my head
are heavier than the sun,
lending their light
across a universe, a lifetime
to shatter my insides in their silence.
the ground has already crumbled,

Hadfield gazed out the small glass window,
a portal to home.
Through the opening, an inspiring sight,
the bright sunlight shone.
Swirling colors, pushing to the horizon,
a palette of aquamarine,
And through the dappled cover of clouds,