Staring up at the sky

When I was a boy,

I stared up at the moon

and thought if it was that far away,

how far away everything in the sky must be.

When the first ship appeared in the sky beside the moon,

almost blocking it out,

I wondered how big it had to be if it wasn’t as close as the moon.

Sitting on the same patch of grass now as I did back then

gives me a lot to think about,

helps me understand that nothing matters.

Nothing means anything.

In a blink,

the ship could fire its lasers again

and turn everything to dust,

just like they did when they turned the Rockies to rubble.

I remember the first time someone said to me

they could just vaporize us if they wanted,

they could just turn us into yesterday’s news,

debris floating through space,

a cloud of dust where a planet used to be.

I wish that I could still be that little boy

who stared up at the sky

and dreamt about how every dream could be possible

and how every dream could come true.

I wish I could still be the little boy

who didn’t know that if

he wanted dreams to come true

then he also needed to accept

nightmares could come true, too.

Bad dreams existed just as much as good dreams.

More than that, I wish I could stop staring up at the sky all night.