It's been over thirteen billion years
since we big banged into existence.
The universe is starting to get cold.

And like waiting toys abandoned
by some attention-deficient Owner,
things are starting to get cold.

We make our little bonfire of religion,
of science, of philosophy (other planks of wood)
to keep warm. Ah, warmth at last.

That He'd save us,
or We'd save ourselves,
or we'd explain everything away.

The night is cold. Stars. Are they
God's watchful eyes? But we do not
need a God

to know that they are
spheres of gravity-bound (but what
is our centre of gravity?) plasma.

Whatever empty space someone forgotten to fill,
we like liquids rush to fill up the vacuity.
But it's an artifice. The train is civilisation-bound.

Our hands and feet are tied to the cold, steel tracks.
We struggle against our lives to escape.
But the train is civilisation-bound.

So that when we look to our children
to inherit this world - which is false,
which is as concocted as myth -

it must be bittersweet to give them a better world.
This world we created can crumble like a candy empire.
Child-like imbecility. No happily-ever-afters.

The night is cold, still.
Stars.
Thirteen billion years.

We deny that it's Cold.
We explain it away.
Existential therapy.