cosmic experiment under watchful puppy eyes

sterile white / beeping machines /

 like mission control monitors /

 tracking breaths like spacecraft signals /

here we are: contained within

 four walls of sanitized dreams,

 a pristine prison that orbits

 my need for control

what must it feel like to love

 knowing gravity keeps pulling?

 nurses tell me mortality

 is the cruelest teacher;

 that come to think of it

 we're all just borrowed oxygen

 walking / waiting

i think of Laika sometimes,

that brave cosmonaut pup

launched into the void knowing

no return ticket waited;

how they let her play with children

before strapping her in for

her final flight

sunlight streams through windows

like god's judgement, casting

shadows on trembling hands that once

held victories / now hold only

IV lines and fading hopes

my own strength scatters like

 space debris - once i danced

across spotlit courts, now

my legs forget basic steps,

muscle memory failing

beneath fluorescent lights