you were born with stars in your eyes and the pull of gravity in your heart.

at night, you look up at the night sky and see the universe under your feet, feeling small but so impossibly big at the same time. you stare into the eyes of the universe and the universe stares back at you, silent and unblinking. it's almost uncomfortable, to look at something so vast and suddenly realize that it is much, much bigger than you could ever have imagined.

(it's vertiginous, as if you were falling yet still standing on your feet)

wide-eyed you learn about constellations and satellites and nebulae, your thirst for knowledge as vast as the void itself. you read, and you watch, and you learn, filling yourself with pieces of the universe little by little, until you replace the lonely child you once were and become the starlight within your soul.

(the lonely child must still be there, somewhere, floating in the void, but you can't reach it anymore)

years later, you close your eyes and look into yourself. and there, deep inside your chest, you can still feel it. the flowing of galaxies in your blood, the constellations curled tightly around your ribs, the forming of nebulae in your lungs, the stars dying and being reborn with each heartbeat. it's in your veins, in your organs, in your brain. you can't get rid of it, because it is yourself, every song and every laugh and every breathing silence.

(but you are never truly silent anymore, because the music of the spheres is within you)