september 3, 2020

mostly i wish i could push a button and release gravity's hold on me
just me
and ascend slowly, a long last look at the beautiful world we're killing
slowly up past the treetops and the rooflines and the skylines and finally
letting even the shapes of the highways give way, the rising of the coastline, the thinning of the air
the vistas widening and the oxygen lessening and i would really only have to let my lungs deflate
as i rise through cumulus, stratus, wind like ether streaming over so cold skin
let my heart rate rise as the oxygen falls and wait for the sky to start
the surprising long minutes of clear ascension as the body panic climbs too
turning bluer, then blacker, the outer edges of where i know the end waits
and the whole planet tilts her forehead to me as i slide out of her grip
to the eventual loss of pressure, shape, and self

where i'll become a star
a body returning to the eons, carbon and nitrogen and my limestone spine
and the little bits of lithium i paid so much money for on earth
uncastrated and redistributed among the molecules of the universe
unbounded and reforming anew