By Viviana Sanchez, TIWP Student

“Anything I cannot transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy… We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.” — Anaïs Nin

We are made up of “layers, cells, constellations.”

We are stardust, puffy and acidic. 

We are observers, celestial visitors.

We are bodies and bones, destined for a larger purpose.

We come from everything in the cosmos, from huge space clouds of ice and dust to the rings of planets light years away.

We are everything there ever was and ever will be.

After we are gone, we will never disappear.

We will become the stars, our atoms will join the stars in Andromeda.

Our essence will linger in constellations after every cell in our body is smashed to bits.

We our not our brains, fingers, or DNA. We are galactic display.

A comet, a moment, a heart beat, a glass of iced tea.

A trip, a slip, a blip in existence.

An orange peel, an ever turning wheel.

A species destroying itself, a shell of cells, an Easter egg of proteins.

That’s all we really are or were.

“I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy,” in empathy.

I think everyone deserves love. I believe the world is beautiful and fragile.

We are microscopic in the universe, so love in the only thing that blinds and binds us to existence. 

We are in a solar system, in a galaxy, in a clumps of thousands more galaxies, in a web of trillions more. 

All in an orb, a drop of water in an ocean.

We really do not exist, we are really and truly invisible. 

We are so proud of ourselves, but we cannot bend time or touch space.

We are a trapped, confined, and simple race.

We are just a jumble of cells, barely able to get by.

Our minds need to rest for half of the day. 

We are just complex, advanced prey.

Evolved too far for our bodies to manage, we cope with love—our personal bandage.

Here in our tiny corner of the universe we must stay.

Lock and squared away.

Because we are nothing but “layers, cell, constellations.” 

Persistent, in the mindless, endless void of existence.