Sometimes 

I forget to breathe.  

I’d like to imagine each inhalation

sends me swirling through space 

toward the beginning, 

faster than thought, 

weightless, without constraints, 

transformed into an energy

I can neither name nor comprehend.

How to know light years, the life span of a star,

or why high school physics 

was not a class for girls?  

My mother said I’d have more friends 

if I smiled more, so I did.  

She sat on the edge of a mint-green bed,

collecting quiet tears inside white tissue clouds.  

I watched her lose herself 

and not look back to find the remnants, 

a lost astronaut

trapped in lifeless orbit.

Sometimes 

I forget how I learned 

to stay quiet, selfless, 

floating further and further away

from myself.  

A few more rotations of the earth

and I’ll be a year older.

When I blow out the candles 

I’ll make a promise, not a wish -

to learn the laws of motion,

to breathe myself into light.