When I was young I prayed every night.
One, that the aliens would not get me.
And second, that the aliens would come and get me.

All I have ever wanted was to leave. Even before I got here.
I wanted to close that door and watch the world.
Get small. Float away little world.

I don't know if I could have breathed the air on my new world.
Maybe they would have made gills.
On my throat. Or on my thigh.

I'm sure eventually I would have grown tired of my adopted world.
And then I would dream of the cool blue waters and round shores.
And wish that I could walk in gravity again.

But then I knew it would be too late.
My new gills would never allow me to breathe oxygen again.
And my eyes couldn't cry anymore because, well...

They had to hollow them out to make the new ways for me to survive.
They took pieces of my valves and ventricles.
They went inside my nose and pulled all the metal out.

I just want to float here in space, loose from my tether.
The orbit and gravity let me go and now,
Re-entry is singeing every hair on my body.

I am the prayer that small children make
to comets that really are
their father's burning corpses.

Photo - S
Words - S