When I close my eyes
press the heels of my palms into
the sockets, push them into my skull
ever so slightly,
the phosphine images dance
even in utter darkness.
Sometimes the colors are cold-
purples splashes like deep buckling
bruises on skinned knees,
heart blue of a stormy sea,
gray ash covering a consumed funeral pyre.
Sometimes they are warm-
crimson reds flash with dull orange,
a yellow hue to soften the background,
a golden brown like the sun
beaming on slick mud.

The lids closed over my crater eyes
lips parted as I just experience
the sensation of being
nothing and everything all at once.
And when I remove my hands,
open my eyes,
I feel infinitely different
but the same.
Everything and nothing has changed
a fundamental feeling inside has gone
away but only just emerged.

I look at myself in the mirror
and do not recognize who stares back,
but have never imagined her differently.
My face doesn't quite look like mine,
like there used to be some other
consciousness inhabiting
the expanse of my skull
like a different heart
beat inside my pericardial cavity.
My fingers look too short,
my hair too long,
my nose not squishy enough
but I remember feeling the locks
of my hair between my
too short fingers,
remember scrunching my
not squishy enough nose
at smells not satisfying
I remember feeling every inch of my skin
even if it seems too warm or too bumpy
I recall placing my hands on my hips
when displeased
sticking my too wide tongue out
batting my too clumpy eyelashes.

Running my tongue over my teeth
the smooth pearl-like bone
feeling the jagged points of my canines
and fainty remembering
moving a salty, chalky pebble around my mouth
twisting it with the tip of my tongue
slightly biting on the surface
the friction of stone on teeth jarring
and I spat it out
the saliva covered pebble
striking the ground
leaving my spit to absorb into the Earth
a little peace offering
to Mother Nature.

I have always been of this universe
the material of stars coursing through
my tiny veins and capillaries.
My nerve endings
like nebula just beginning to take form
my eyes like swimming in
a galaxy of green and yellow and gray
my stomach acid like the uninhabited
surfaces of lifeless planets
outside of our solar system.
The thoughts in my head
like the ever-expansive space
us humans peer into when we
stargaze, our wonder at the falling stars
how we find the depthless dark
of infinity beautiful and terrifying.

I have watched many things burn
stared at books disappear into dust
observed as bonfires
go up in flame and smoke
but nothing will burn quite as bright
as intensely white-hot
as the hunger in my eyes.