The Other Side

With every chance that I'm given
I find myself staring out at the night sky
and wishing beneath my breath
to be up there, anywhere,
staring out in every direction
and absorbing the infinite,
but I realize now that I have.

I have been up there,
millions of miles across space,
carried by this diligent ship of rock,
and seen the cosmos from a different vantage,
only to stare at the same patterns as before.

To think, that if I should ever break from this world,
travel to the periphery of the Sun's reach
and stand at the doorstep of the interstellar,
I shall recognize the same warriors in the sky,
the same heavenly bestiary glancing back,
as if I had voyaged nowhere at all.

We are contained on this world,
chained to the place of our birth
with no more than the dreams of our youth
and the compassion of those who love us,
but I will not lament an unfounded wish.

To spend my life soaring through the void,
surrounded by the isolating darkness,
I would come to wish with such resolution
to be nearer those points of light,
to settle upon a simple orbiting place
where I may cast away the protection of suit and ship,
feel a star's warmth upon my naked face,
and breathe in the wonders of the universe
from the surface of a planet like ours.