The Home That Wasn’t

Poetry

Gleams of light spill through

and drift across the atmosphere

as she winds her way through

errant space eternal.

Goddesses called down the heavens

once upon a very long, long time ago,

but now those days are gone to dust,

scattered across galaxies alight.

When she signed up for the mission,

she thought she would be gone

for a month, maybe two, or half-a-year —

but she is verging on six months among stars.

Each pinprick of light winking at her

reminds of days when streetlights

welcomed her home from the bus stop,

all the way down to her cheap apartment.

But now space-proof glass separates her

from that which would only kill her

if she broke past the barriers and tried

to touch the burning gas of constellations.

When she goes to sleep at night —

though really it is always night —