We have the universe in our bodies.
The iron in our blood once burned
and writhed and brightened and
dimmed and lived and died and
fell thousands of light-years just
to wind up in your veins. And you
feel it course through your body as
you lay in the grass, staring up at
the dim, still objects that indirectly
birthed you. As you consider their
unfathomable age. But so, too, are
we. The ingredients that built us
existed before the earth even solidified,
before she softened and cooled and
allowed life on her surface. And they
are inside us. We are home to history
we cannot even begin to understand,
bits and pieces of the universe that have
lived and led a thousand lives before they
found you, and a thousand more after. But
for now, they pump quietly in your chest,
shifting with every breath as you find
pictures in our distant, luminous kin
