I find myself here
in the center of a black hole, but
I had a star once of my very own:

a candle in my hands,
little and oddly bent,
and it guttered
like a drowning man gasping for air,
and the wick was nearly spent,

but it was mine,
and it gave off light enough
to make my way
in the dimming hours of
the remains of the day, until

you blew it out,
and as my star flickered into blackness,

you felt assured by the waves of pain in your wake that
         you are here,
         that you are someone

but…

this isn’t my first black hole
for better or worse

I know this spot
and my way around the shadows

and even within the infinite pit, the despairing vacuum,
the place where light—even light—cannot outrun gravity,

I will find a way to reignite…

I will defy the infinities, change the cosmic constants,
align myself with gravity’s enemies,
enter shady deals with dark energy and
strike bargains with negative particles on the event horizon;
I will push a crab nebula through a wormhole, if it comes to that,

and then one day the singularity will start to slip.
I’ll almost pity its dementia
as it releases its grip on time,
as space unbends in its arthritic hands,
and its hoarded treasure chest of rock and ice
floats away quietly
and disappears,
leaving behind it where the black hole was that kind of nothingness
exactly equivalent to a forgotten thought.

a tiny new star will flicker to life,
nothing special in the grand scheme of things,
a guttering candle
that I shall protect with my hand from the wind
and you

and I shall wish to share the light and heat of this little sun,
but not to your avail,

          for, I assure you,
                    you are not here
                    you are not someone