my jupiter

i've always liked space.

the idea of exploring

the final frontier; beyond

and into everything.

when i was in university

i wanted to be an astronaut

with a literature degree—

i thought hey,

why take maths and science

up there, but not language?

not poetry?

it's all well and good if we meet aliens,

but what will they know of us

without first knowing how we love?

i would bring a book of love poems

to the extra-terrestrials

and explain that the finest human condition

is one of devotion.

science got us upwards,

but love gave us the idea.

i'll never be an astronaut.

i think some people are destined

to become the dust that made us;

that shaped us. some of us

are our mother's children,

born on earth to die here too,

but we dream. what are we

if not made of dreams?

at night, i look at the moon.

sometimes, it is so big and full

that my heart swells with it.

my chest bursts like i've stepped

into the light of a space station

without a space suit.

that tiny little moment before death,

in which i am one with the universe,

and it makes me so small.

but, oh. out—

out into the glow of a thousand suns.

little poet in the wide universe,

loving his way upwards.

loving someone so much

that he understands

what it feels like to take

such a great leap.

with her, i know the stars.

April 2022