I sit quietly on the bench
outside my college dorms
It's colder than death,
shivering in my jacket,
clutch it desperately
The street lights flicker
and the stars are barely visible
The smoke of my cigarette
looks white against the dark background
The puffs drift upwards,
soaring closer and closer to the moon
It floated above this city,
my classes and coffee shops
Then, it rose higher
into the hidden clouds
to the bright stars that lay,
dying, in the casket sky
After this, they passed the moon,
not indeed made of cheese
The smoke drifted past
where the now-absent sun would be
And so it went out of our universe
and into the galaxy
to which is the greatest unknown imaginable
All the colors and shapes
and sights and smells
of strange worlds and different universes
and, God, what did the universe taste like?
But that puff of smoke doesn't know
just how extraordinary it's discoveries are
or how rare it's adventures are
And I see this thing-
this miracle mix of water and air-
exit my mouth and vanish into the night
and I wish I could fly with it
I guess the beauty of it all
is in what I can never experience,
but can fantasize about in dreams
