Void

People are comforted when they look at the night skies.
Sailors and navigators depend on what they see,
the light that emanates from the darkness.
People find solace in the orbs of light,
in the golden beads that shatter the black hues
of the fabric of the universe. They feel a warmth spread,
sensing an unearthly, omnipresent entity watching over them--
smiling, protecting them from the shadows of the night.

The spheres seem to blink--like living, thriving bodies.
Their clouds of hair serpentine across the sky,
humanizing what is too large to absorb, to fathom.
Faces seem to look down on the face of humanity--
faces whose features are separated by light years
of distance. Faces whose features are composed of
burning, furious flames of heat--enough to destroy
a civilization, to annihilate life. The stars are powerful,
but deadly.

And yet, a galaxy of nothingness lies ahead,
suffocating us, compressing the earth.
Regardless of how comforting the night skies may appear,
we are looking at an empty chasm. A spiralling void.
A void of utter, asphyxiating silence that will never be lifted.
Because the universe is a vacuum; humanity is all alone.
When navigators stare up, basking in the heat of the stars,
they are only basking in the heat of the people around them--
they are staring at the unending void of the universe.