Body Composition

Anyone who we have ever feared
Or lost,
Is seventy-two percent H2O.
               Two parts hydrogen.
               One part oxygen.
And everyone who we have ever loved,
As well.
               Me -
I am seventy-two percent water.
But it doesn’t feel that way sometimes.

We are hearts,
               And brains,
                           And nerve endings,
The blood that runs through our veins,
The rib cages and shoulder blades,
The bones, worn down
And remade.
               We are worlds inside of people.

We are atoms, 7 octillion,
To be exact.
               Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon.
Signals and commands and cells, that facts
With science, studies can explain.
But it doesn’t feel that way.

Sometimes,
We are stardust -
               Cloud people,
Shaped with the powder of a thousand stars,
Forged with the fires of the suns
That circle us.

The irises of our eyes are stratospheres,
Pupils black like telescopes set to the night sky,
And the universe whose true expanse
We’ll never know,
               Or created why.

Because science can’t explain all of us.
Not the days when I’m alone,
Or lost in the world I am made of.
Not when dreams are the nightmares of my days,
When I can breathe, yet inside my lungs ablaze,
When my heart is pumping,
               But stripped of love.
The sleepless nights,
When I’ve cried so much that
I’m down to one percent.
My functioning brain only torture and torment.

We are galaxies,
Complex in their simplicity,
More than statistics of science,
               Or biology.
We are the memories buried in the wrinkles,
The bruises that only the dead can see,
The salt on our cheeks,
The smiles of our loved ones,
And the aches in our hearts.

We are people -
               Made of water and stars. 

This poem is about: 
Me
Our world
Poetry Terms Demonstrated: 

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