Introduction: The other night, I watched an episode of PBS NOVA about decoding the universe—and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. There was a moment in the episode when they showed the famous Voyager photo of Earth: a tiny pixel suspended in a sunbeam, what Carl Sagan famously called the pale blue dot. That image, paired with Sagan’s words, gave me goosebumps.

It reminded me just how strange and beautiful it is that we’re even here at all. That from billions of miles away, this entire planet—all our heartbreak and joy and laundry and songs and art—shrinks to a single pixel. A floating dot of chaos and wonder.

Outer space has always fascinated me. But lately, I’ve been struck by how much we keep learning. In my lifetime alone, the discoveries we’ve made feel unreal. We used to think space exploration in the 1960s was the height of human achievement (and it was), but we’ve only kept going—reaching farther, decoding more, expanding what we know. And yet… we’re still here, small and spinning, trying to make sense of ourselves.

This poem came out of that moment. It’s not just about space—it’s about being human. Being neurodivergent. Feeling too much and still feeling like not enough. And still… somehow, being part of something astonishing.

---

zoom out
      more
         more
            (no, more than that)
until the noise softens
until Earth becomes
            a dot
               a dust mote
                   a breath you forgot to hold

& yet—

this dot contains:
  🧣 the texture of my favorite sweater
  ❄️ the crunch of ice under nervous feet
  🌪️ the chaos of my unbrushed hair
  🎨 the smell of paint & possibility
  🐾 the song I only sing to the cats

they say it’s just a pixel in a photograph
but I see
     color palettes in cloud cover
     conversations in birdsong
       the entire universe
          in the way a leaf falls wrong-side-up

neurotypical logic says:

we are small
meaningless
temporary

but I say:
small things make loud echoes
        & I am both the whisper
             & the reverb

this dot is
where I
  mask to survive
  unmask to breathe
  cry on the bathroom floor
  laugh so hard I forget the weight
  carry stories in overstimulated hands
  & dream in technicolor

someone once said:

“everyone you love, everyone you know,
every human being who ever was…”
& I thought
  yes
  and also every version of me
     that I’ve ever been
        and might still become

from far away, it’s quiet
    but up close
      it’s buzzing
         humming
            screaming with life

my life.
your life.
this dot.

not meaningless
just
        impossibly full.