I was commissioned to an odd planet with no stars visible; on the search for mankind

All the food is digital and all the entertainment is in the porthole

I packed up my essentials and headed into the styrofoam 

My most worn clothes, a camera to reach where eyes don't, the glasses that emphasize my smile and rest upon my nose, notepads, pens and pencils; I pack up my transmission, body and spirituals, my electrolytes, and all of my rituals, a toothbrush is negligible

I’m to be a fleeting hope who visits the wide mouth we presume, I suppose

Soon I enter as the sandman into dreams unknown, where our eyes dont go.

My energy is in droves, dividing my loves into rooms in my home, everything great is with a sacrifice I’m told

Sleeping sphynx leaning on the shoulder of God, I always imagined the earth wasn't so hot

I sweat through my socks

This space is immeasurable– liken it to a God

A display of time before we drew up a cog, wrinkles in shapes infinite

Spectacles that are forever entangled in the mess we explained it 

And even so, I packed neat, thinking of everything my body needs, and all to lie beyond the plexiglass my hand meets 

The space enterprise opens its gaze to a man earth dwelling still fumbling with his feet

How funny

The magic scape will learn my face

I would have packed nothing if I could have, I fear my incoming

They told me in the letter that it’s uncertain how things may respond

The unchapped void may be ambivalent to our shiny suits and a titanium tube

However fortunate, I fear that we’re heretics, I’d be relieved to find it silent

If the unhappening swallows me it is merely science, my belief absolving me of my dignity

I can't wait to see how far we’ve come and where I land in a memory, how in an instant we can be free

Plucked as a clam from the sea, eyes peeled from a cumulus state rolling like tape with my hands covering my teeth

Not an oyster but an ocean

Send a Goliath to the solar system and see how reliable his motion

I wait patiently as my arms and feet do the work for me

Gathering wits and the final relishing, banquets for the imaginary fairy departing

In a moment of paralysis, I sat entrenched in the thought of emotion

“Is there a way to know when I am dying?”

I asked a window limescale-stained

Is it cold and breathless? Crass and vergent? A sharpness in the chest that alerts the brain that something is terribly wrong in this moment? A sickness that drags like a winter rising out of summer? A flush of snow over the garden announcing the creditor has come to collect their assurance that we only borrowed so much as we could hold, a rap on the table of hands… or is it indescribable, inconceivable until the moment we conceived it so? I hope it's one of those things we just know, and it’s comforting to finally let go. I hope that it's something that gently touches my soul to let me know.

I grab my suitcase and leave a note:

“Goodbye my beloved rhythm, my house full of loved ones, I loved you so dearly. It finally happened and it's critical, so please, hug me when I return home. They called for me this morning and I learned of the mission briefly. I wish I could’ve seen your faces once more, but maybe this is for the best. On the bright side, I’ll finally have some conversation to bring to dinner. Do not hesitate to write me, even if I receive nothing. I will tell you all of my adventures when I see you again before Christmas! Be careless and happy for me, I give you all my chest, 

Love–”

I was warned this was an unmanned craft and not a visit

I have packed everything, but I feel as though I am forgetting something

I set my feet once more on the concrete and lock my apartment door

Staring up at what comes after this flaccid building, how I falter

My belongings accompany me and I feel as though I am missing something

I wave for a taxi and wait in the passenger seat as he carries my things to the trunk

The tenements look like a robot with wide wings reaching all the way to the state buildings

I can't help but think of all the things I'm forgetting

This morning I woke up excited for the pub and drinks in the evening

Now I watch my life gently escaping

“Are you ready, sir?”

My voice is hesitant as I'm waiting for something to emerge

I remember beautiful expectations, warm candles, dinner slipping into the hallway with hints of ginger, and French classical echoing into the stairwell as I return, the homing purpose in just existing near her, coming in each day further until I evaporate or disappear.

I found myself in that box that wouldn't close

I daydreamt of an excuse to not go

Circling the drain as everything that makes me funnels into a tunnel I can't chase

Once more I checked my notes and everything has a mark beside it

My legs hold all my anxiety 

My death will be cold

I carry with me everything that space could hold

My sentiment is to the ground that soon gains one less set of toes

“Yes.”

My feet squeezed together fastened

My eyes measured out all of the new expanses on this street

One day this is going to be an incredible place