Connection in the stars
There are a lot of,
what I guess
are nights up here
where I think of everything
I miss
and I try to remember what it’s like
to remember all those moments
of connection.
I try to remember holding
my lover’s hand,
or the warmth of my dog’s tiny body
pressed against me,
or what it feels like to make
a room full of people
laugh,
to hear the feeling of release and
the feeling of
worry
disappearing.
Up here,
past the clouds,
outside the atmosphere,
closer to the sun than I am to home,
connection is hard to come by.
Up here,
alone as I am,
lonely as I might be,
wilting along the way,
I wonder how many
can even
understand
the true weight of solitude.
Others who have signed up to man the stations
could have a sense
—should have a sense—
but maybe they know the feeling
too well,
too deeply,
too intimately.
There might be nothing between us.
I recognize the
grotesques humour there, too:
so deeply wanting connection
and knowing
there are others who know
exactly
what I am feeling,
how it settles on the chest,
in the guts,
weighs on the shoulders,
and wanting
nothing
to do with anyone who can relate.
There is
connection
and then there is
too much connection.
I want it on my terms.
I want
my love,
my way
and to find what I need and want
in my own time.
The sad part
—or one of the sad parts, I guess—
is that there is a chance I could die up here,
never again touching
what I’m moaning about.
A chunk of ice,
broken free from an asteroid,
could smash through a window
or my air filtration system could fail.
My heat captures could break down.
My water system could crap out.
A fat lot of good
connection will do me
in my most desperate of moments
in the desert of space.
I will be so far away
that it doesn’t matter
what I want or what I need.
If I make it back after this tour,
maybe I will
be able to meet someone
who has been up here before
with nothing but their thoughts and their own arms
and they will be able to provide some comfort,
somehow let me know that there is a point to it all,
somehow let me know that
reconnection is possible.
Maybe they can let me know
that no matter how faint hope might be,
nothing is forever,
not even forever.
