Sometimes when I can’t sleep,
I open the window
and dangle my legs out above the roof and gaze upon the stars
Twinkling, twinkling in the distance
Orion’s Belt, The Big Dipper, peeking out from the inky blackness,
The streetlights blinking away along the empty streets
I can pretend I’m the only person left on Earth,
Or I can go out even further, to the other stars, further, to the planets where I’d be just a speck
Even further out and I’d be gone, out of the Milky Way
And no one would ever see me against all the other universes spinning around, yet never colliding in their own separate menageries, lost in their own lives,

In quiet desperation.