as you fall
fall, until the stars turn red
until the pipes which once fed that sacred, broken house of yours
turn
green

a wonderous green, unimaginably organic
the kind your father spoke of when you were only small

you had always thought it impossible
for something alive to pigment itself with such an odd, bright,
bleeding colour
why not a red? like those stars you'll never see?

if only you could live to see it now
any of you, i mean
it's as beautiful as he said
a final exhale of a newly fresh air in the wake of the universe's own last breath

before, inevitably, those pipes turn a darker shade
as does the green
as does the exhale, drawn
as do the stars
as the universe runs out