(Photo by author.)

CLAUSTROPHOBIC ASTRONAUT

POEM

The format of this poem is important to me, so I put a screenshot first. ✌️

CLAUSTROPHOBIC ASTRONAUT

Will your vapid ocean of worries be in vain?

So many questions you’ll never have the time to answer.

Insistently asking, always asking, asking.

Mission control screams, all is clear, but you don’t hear,

opaque helmet sealed, stippled by hourglass sand, astro

white

and black,

blasted

inside a lonely singularity . . .

You see the vibrant infinity of stars burning — and even

more

dark matter.

Poor, beaten, space cowboy.

Your reflective mask, you’ve worn, relatively, how long?

Airtight, layered, unload this unrequired weight off.

Young male of moons, running nowhere in suffocated

space boots, mouth prone frozen by lack of oxygen, and

wild imagination.

Thy subconscious, fixated on bluing gray noise.

Why doth the ghost in your ear deny you peace?

With your toasted eyes, peek: a position of safety.

CAN YOU HEAR ME?

Life or death, you clutch to the ground for control.

Gentle-being, lived so long in your black hole.

Release your shiny headpiece, your protective suit now.

See

salt

crystals blob, and breathe. Fill your wide ribcage

with alien weightlessness. Let your brain drink,

quenched;

cheers to the future.

Astronauts don’t belong on Earth, rise and glide