Pixels

The apple of the eye of the I.S.S. observation deck

gently pirouettes,

a blue-white-shadowed marble revolving

against the irony of the charcoal “Milky” Way,

and I balance on that marble,

among 8 billion pixels,

and I am just

a pixel

stargazing for

something.

One pixel

visible

240 miles vertical,

I stare into the sky to spy a shooting star that looks like me.

I scour the Earth’s surface to no avail for my reflection,

unwilling to settle for fraternity.

All of the parts that make me, me piece together like a scrapbook overflowing with sentiment messily.

I unfurl the scraps like open secrets:

“son”, “brother”, “black”, “queer”, “NASA”, “dreams”, “griever”, “trauma”, “improbable”.

A living mad-lib

as coincidental as a star.

I‘ve learned, as beautiful too.

My search for representation

mirrors human’s search for

meaning in the night sky,

presumably indoctrinated by astrology, ominous clouds, a hole in my heart, or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

That sky rocks me into meditative bliss like a syncopated lullaby.

I’m one of 8 billion pixels concurrently transfixed,

a musical note in an unwitting orchestra.

My scraps pinpoint my pixel like tags,

data sonified composing a soundtrack looping along Saturn’s Ring.

Far enough to not know me, and me, it,

far enough to see me in full color,

far enough to see the dance

our pigment does

to form

a portrait

that Astronaut Cady Coleman can fawn over, weightless from her deck,

in the night sky.

Embodying an effervescent mosaic

whose intricacies we struggle to grasp

up close.