when i close my eyes,
i can’t help but observe the stars
scattered in the black atmosphere–
an atmosphere i had never taken note of;
behind my eyelids,
guarded by my lashes.
a cosmos I can
escape to
when the silence whispers her secrets,
when the bansuri fills my lungs,
when the tears sting, rolling down my cheeks,
seeping into the cracks of my heart.
they call these stars,
this magnificent universe:
“phosphenes”
in the science textbooks.
but i think of it as my
personal Cosmos–
one i can carry with me
wherever i go,
one that stays with me even when
i close the windows,
one that i can see on
the cloudiest of nights.
it is at times like this
that i wonder–
they say the Universe is
an outside source
to be researched but
have we ever noticed
the universes inside us,
each organ, each cell
possessing a universe of its own,
like the “phosphene” behind our eyes,
the liquid galaxies in our salivary glands?
have we ever realized that
the stars we see when we close our eyes
are nothing less than the stars in the Milky Way.
that the liquid galaxies we feel when we swallow,
are nothing less than Andromeda and Centaurus.
that the stardust in the oxygen we inhale, is nothing less
than the dust spread by exploding supernovae.
have we ever realized that
the stars we see when
we close our eyes is just
a fraction of the universe
we hold
within.