is the void where we all
rise from? if so,
why ignore it? 
it’s untold, unheard
of. anything that
approaches zero is 
stopped by a one, 
as if a lonely existence
is better than none,
from ten to just one --

but not the thin line
that traps emptiness
within its folds
like the mouth of a
yearning call of a 
child gulping breath.
like the open-lipped gasp
before life strays away 
in a strangled breath. 
like a dead man’s 
heart drained of blood
for autopsy.

nothingness.
do we start from nothingness? 

we stop at one, like
it’s a way to turn blind. 
to not ask where we all were.
but the universe was a singularity.
singularity -- one. that grew
until it no longer could, spilling 
at it seams with gas burning into
particles that would somehow reside in us.

a singularity. one.

the universe packed in a spot, 
they say, as small as a
pencil-point on paper.
but sometimes i trace 
the edges and still --
they still -- make zero.

as if we’ve all arranged
into precise set of particles 
from nothing.