Genes, Dreams, and Stars

"You wanna know how I did it...I never saved anything for the swim back."
                                                                                                           -Vincent

There is a boy, untouched, made of love
and heart, who dreams. He dreams
of roaring fires and golden galaxies and infinite -
he is rooted and blemished. A blot
within a series of numbers and letters and expectations.
His yearning is unheeded, forgotten in the face
of routine and law and superior breeding.

His blood pumps limits and life and envy, veins chilled by
the unavoidable warmth of imperfection. He scrubs
himself raw, a picture of pink knees and nose and chest,
jaw clenched and breath short and reaching - hopeful,
as he watches his body burn into dust.
His heart is full of stutter stops and starts, drowning in rivers
and spitting out curses - and keeps on. The world turns, oblivious.

His dreaming is hungry, ongoing and stumbling
and stealing. His limbs stretch, muscles aching, eyes crinkling
as he gazes up. The spinning of the earth and the burning
of rockets whisper of something beyond perfection, beyond
eyelashes and skin and bone. The world rumbles on, oblivious
to his pining, but he is borne of stars and possibility.
His genes are useless in the inky black.

He gazes up, adjusts his dreams,
and gets to work.