Victoria in space
There was a point in my life
where I lived in a place that felt
like a shoebox and
I never thought
I would live
somewhere smaller.
It turned out I can live somewhere smaller
—I signed up
to man this shuttle
and float in space for a year.
The irony of feeling like
I don’t have enough
space
in
space
isn’t lost on me. Trust me.
It also isn’t lost on me
that I am more disconnected
than I have
ever been
in my entire life.
That isn’t and shouldn’t be a surprise.
Tiny space,
alone,
so far away I might as well be dead.
Disconnection.
Makes sense.
Where could I find
connection
up here anyway?
How could I find connection
in the stars,
a million million miles away
from even someone I can’t stand,
let alone
someone I love?
I have more in common with
roiling balls of gas,
chunks of rock, hunks of ice,
clouds of comets,
a meteor with a tail a thousand miles long.
There’s romance there,
at least on paper.
There’s romance in the thought of celestial connection,
just like there is with oceans and earth and mountains
and flames.
I miss the connection I had in my tiny apartment
with my partner and my dog,
with my friends and my community,
but I still wonder:
maybe I signed up for this time in space
long before
I got there physically;
maybe I have always dreamed of one thing
while pretending I want another;
an alien actor in an alien body with an alien mind and an alien heart.
It’s such a
funny thing
to yearn for the
deepest sort of connection, even knowing that
connection is impossible.
Up here,
where there is no day or night,
only awake and asleep,
where there are no seasons,
only pages flipping on a calendar.
It’s only me up here,
me and all the things
I can say I want,
tell myself I want,
that I can pretend to want.
All I have to do is watch
the universe
pass by,
push buttons and keep logs,
and dream about everything
that awaits my return
and I hope
I want what I tell myself I want.