Each launch begins with a prayer
until I have a puncture, a rip, a tear.
Mayday!  Mayday!  Mayday!

I am always falling
either to the earth or to the stars,
falling forward to God the Father
or father to son.
  
To survive I move in the vacuum
between calm heartbeat
and silent in-breath,

hurling to my final mission
to repair a disconnection
of a mind that can
***** life with a thought
or by sniffling
a remembered tear,

knowing not whether to
****** the monstrous soul
or to hug the last, lost dead part.

I swim through
the waterfalls of mars
knowing I never really knew you
nor am I you.

“Stay where you are.
Do not proceed any further,”
you hiss in loving defiance.

In the space in between
I see that madness is
never once thinking of home,
being free of all moral doubt.

Tethered to the umbilical
I cut the insanity to the vacuum,
suffocate the space between
with love,

until I can no longer see
what is not there,
until I miss what
is right in front of me.

In the after-burn from Saturn
I am looking forward
to the day of my self return.

I will rely on what is closest to me.
I will live and love.