I have seen so many pieces of this world. I've seen the way sunlight shines in through the water, the pretty patterns on my unattractive skin. Shades of blue convincing me I could be as meaningful as the waves that I move my limbs through. If only I could forget my face. And the water lifts off the ground, then crashes back down in a symphony that we have all listened to, but never understood why. Why it makes us want to cry, dance, mold into and fall into the puddles that make up everything we have wanted to be for so long.

When I was younger I used to love long drives at night. Getting to look out over the city, a maze of lights that convinced me magic was real. This was a world of fairies, and I was amidst it all. And I of course had to wonder… If this was a maze, how do you get out? The answer, the only one, was up. Where to? I never questioned. Only up until they were far enough away to not have to see their mother drive back to the place that hurt her at two in the morning.

It is not that I am so easily willing to give up my earthly experiences for anything in the world. Good or bad, my humanness and the true understanding of others means more to me than the Earth. It's that I am searching for something outside of myself, outside of the Earth. Something far away, unreachable in mortal form. Humanness will never allow me to feel the heat of a star, to understand what it is like to be nothing but dust. I am reaching out to the cosmos and begging it to teach me everything I will never have the lifespan to learn. I am begging for warmth and cold and the perfect ending to an imperfect story.

I hope that when I reach her, the mother of our universe will tell me it is okay to rest. I hope she will tell me that I have done well, and I need not continue on if I have no more to give.