when I was a child,
I used to gaze up at the man on the moon
peeking through the gaps
between the bedroom curtains
that sheltered me from the rest
of the whole world

and I remember feeling small,
pressing my hand against cold glass,
against waves crashing along shores I hadn't yet met,
people swarming around dinner tables
with faces I couldn't recognize;

how we were all just tiny specks of dust
frozen in our beliefs
that we meant something
bigger than just our bodies

and now that I am older
and my skin has tasted the warmth of other voices,
I have built myself a box made of other words
from lives I entered by accident,
simply by trekking around cities
and falling in love with strangers
that once felt so unfamiliar

here I am,
and now I gaze out the window
of the house I never felt at home in,
feeling the embrace of a thousand worlds
I somehow met
even before I truly learned how to wander.