Homecoming

It was time for him to go home, and this was the scariest journey yet. Twenty years traveling the cosmos. He had seen things that would make anyone lose their sanity, survived situations where one out of place sneeze would have killed him, and, of course, he endured the cold, dark, never ending void of space that was accompanied by eternal loneliness. So then why was his journey home the most terrifying? Was there an asteroid field in his path? An alien warship pursuing him? No. He was just terrified of going home, going back to his place of birth. Did he leave someone behind and was too scared to face him or her again? Was he a convict? Maybe after twenty years the void had become his home, so he was terrified because he wasn't actually going home: he was leaving it. Maybe he could no longer interact with others because he was alone for two decades. Maybe it is all of these things. Why is he going home if he is so terrified?

Times Best Forgotten

The Cathedral will send the spores.
Airborne daughters sing softly of the rumbling core.
Worshiping mouths breath insides out into prayer.
The head under the terrace roars.

Stardust

I have always experienced satisfaction when it comes to putting something together. It is always fascinating to see one brick, thread, gear, block, plank, nail, etc. slowly turn into something magnificent as everything comes together. Like when I was little playing with Legos, I would lay down one plastic brick, and then another and another and another. Within half-an-hour I would be placing the final piece onto the Bat-mobile. Same goes for construction. I love to look at the foundation of a house being laid, and then try to fast forward to the future and see each brick laid down, every plank nailed into place. Months later I would see the newly completed house, and then think back to when it was nothing but re bars and concrete. The biggest things come from small things being put together. This also applies to us. We all started as a single cell, and overtime our bodies were constructed as our cells multiplied. What about the atoms in our bodies? Those came from exploding stars billions of years ago. As eons passed, our atoms from all across the universe came together to form our world, and then us. The atoms in your left hand probably came from a star that was billions of miles from the star the provided the atoms for your right hand. Matter can't be destroyed; everything we have had to come from somewhere. Our houses to the bricks. The bricks to the minerals. The minerals to the atoms. The atoms to the long dead stars. It is no wonder scientists say we are stardust.

Rotten Cologne

“I'm oxygen and he's dying to breathe.” 
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

You are a pocket of fresh oxygen.
You are worn stone and a wet rock.
You are burnt toast and raw dough,
sunken jelly and milk chocolate.
You are a dark cloud over a rusty truck.

However, you are not a tapestry or the Bible.
You are not an old dog or a senile lizard.
And you are certainly not a depressed janitor
or a broken engine.

It is possible that you are icy waves,
but you are not even remotely similar to crusty eyes.

Looking back through an album of your past
will reveal that you are not a cold wind, smelly poo, or dusty magma.
It also will show that you are far from being a cute hamster.

What the photos put bluntly
is that I am a spark, a wily weasel, and a fatal illness.
I am an interesting game of chess and a ruined book.

The photos also shove into your face
the fact that I am a sad puddle, the yin and yang,
and a piece of salted caramel, covered in dark chocolate.

I am Jupiter humming in orbit
and a Pulsar screeching into the void of space.
And contrary to what you may believe, I am not a pocket of fresh oxygen.
You are a pocket of fresh oxygen, and you will always be filled with warm sunlight.
Though you are fresh, you still carry the musk of worn stone and wet rock,
and in appearance you are a dark cloud over a rusty truck.

Pilot

Samuel Ferguson stared blankly at the mirror. No one could tell what he was thinking about. He was emotionless, silent, aloof from the rest of the world. He still ate, walked, and slept, but he was like a machine stuck on autopilot. The nurse came down the hallway into his room and knocked on the door frame. This was to let him know it was lunchtime. Though he didn't flinch, turn, or acknowledge the notification in any manner, the nurse still knew he would head to the cafeteria in a few minutes and be on time for lunch. What was the boy thinking? What was it like living as him? Was there a crippled pilot in that head, slumped in a chair, who was unable to take manual control of his vehicle? Was all the pilot could do was watch everything unfold on a large screen which represented the boy's vision?

Slug

There it is, moving along the moist soil. Its destination seems to be a tree up ahead, which towers over the creature. It is sliding along... trying its best to reach its destination. The little slimy accordion slides along the top of the soil. No music is being played however. It is so slow. Looks like it will take hours for it to reach its destination. I wonder if if experiences time like we do. Does it know that it is so slow? Or does time go much faster for it like it believes it is moving at a moderate pace but then everything around it is moving so fast. By the time it reaches the tree, the sun will already have risen. "Oh," the slug may think, "is it already morning? That was quick; it was only like a few minutes." Actually, I am pretty sure slugs don't even think about time in minutes. Maybe they often space out like I do and go onto autopilot. I try to imagine what my life would be like if I experienced time like a slug. To me, I would be moving at normal speed, but everything would be going too fast for me to keep up or even survive. To everyone else I would be getting in their way; a kid who is perpetually in slow motion.

Jellyfish

The jellyfish was just... there. Floating... suspended off Boston shores. What was it doing... contemplating? Was it thinking about the fear-mongering done by politicians and leaders to the people? Was it worrying about its next meal? Was it spending too much time in the disappointment of a previous expectation? Was the jellyfish doing any of this? I've heard that jellyfish are not even considered alive by biology standards. So then there was a good chance it wasn't even contemplating at all. Maybe I need to update my knowledge.

The jellyfish is shut out from our troublesome world. No stress over bills or school. No worries over the health and safety of loved ones. It is just suspended in the bay, in the water. Secure in its own little world; safe from our world within its own pocket dimension. Or perhaps not. A tide could bring the poor jelly into our troublesome world, dragging it up onto a beach. Ripped from its pocket dimension, the jellyfish no longer functions as it is bombarded with new things. Hot sunlight, gravity, daring boys poking at it with a stick, etc.. Maybe that is how we would act if we were ripped from our sane, understandable world into another dimension. A dimension with things we have never seen before. New forces, physics, colors, beings; everything would be alien. Would we then consider this "new" dimension evil because it differs so much from what we have previously known? Or would we go mad? Would we just shut down like a beached jellyfish, wishing we could go back to our world--our bubble from the unknown.