If I had one wish,

I’d wish the world was smaller.

Because this world is far too heavy for one person to brave alone.

The arms of one person cannot wrap around an ancient trunk,

so how can we expect such meager limbs to lift up the whole Earth?

Their hollow bodies slump in with the weight of holding themselves up.

How can we expect them to bear the weight of a society, a country, a planet?

Their bodies, our bodies, are prone to illness, fatigue, disease, failure.

They break under the tiniest of forces.

A single touch turns into a spiderweb of cracked glass,

and eventually, those broken shards turn into dust, lying beneath a mound of dirt and grass,

signified by nothing but a monochromatic slab of rock, just like the millions, billions of other corpses.

How can we expect these fragile, incompetent messes of limbs and veins and organs and skin to hold up a universe?

If I had one wish,

I’d wish our hearts were larger.

Because these organs the size of a fist cannot handle our vast emotions.

Us humans face too many fluctuating, volatile emotions

that our hearts are bound to fracture, like a shattered mirror,

some time soon.

They’re bound to swell and expand until they burst because our frail bodies are constantly bombarded.

Because our frail hearts are only so elastic.

And they can only take so much before they’re bound to whimper,

“Stop.

Please.

No more.

I can’t take it.”

And the funny thing is that all these things we feel,

these highs and lows and world-turned-upside-down’s are not significant.

Coursing through our veins are these stupid little things scientists call hormones.

They control our urge to smile, our need to cry, our desire to curl up in a tiny hole and die pitifully alone in the middle of nowhere.

Our every fragility can be meddled down to a science.

You’re not unique.

How does that make you feel?

If I had one wish,

I’d wish the stars were closer.

Because so many light years away, our relationship is impersonal.

The stars in the heavens can disguise their true nature.

Massive balls of toxic gas, so hot it’d burn your skin from years away,

so bright your eyes could never hope to catch a glimpse.

The stars can hide as twinkling gems in our artificial sky, smiling down at us, winking enthusiastically as if to say,

“I see you.

I support you.

I believe in you.”

These alienable stars do look down upon us, but with a disdain painted face as they mock our every human fallibility.

We crane our necks up at them in awe and admiration,

thinking these stars are friends, with their close proximity,

their ability to collaborate and form shapes for our amusement.

All the while, they sit upon their toxic thrones in their toxic castles atop clouds made of swirling toxic gas,

observing only our outward actions, not caring to know our thoughts or hearts.

The things that make us human.

But maybe if the stars were closer, we’d see them for who they are.

And we’d realize that we have our own star in our own sky, even better than these impersonal gods suspended above us.

One that we’ve cast aside in our fervert search for a better future.

But our gazes skimmed over the only friend we had.

The sun, the star, that gives us light, warmth, life

Do you really think the sun would want us now?