how big is the universe?

i hold my own
iridescent mortality
in small, trembling fingers
reminded of how the sky holds hers, too,
in a trembling blanket of vast, twinkling blackness
punctuated by things we know are there only because they aren't.

we all operate
under the vast concept of nothing,
and tremble in the wake of
process-of-elimination facts,
of blackness deeper than dilated pupils.

we all operate
on our own grief,
desperately slicing into the darkness,
hoping to tear some shining hole
to illuminate deep, unknowing sorrow
which only resides there
as a response to vast emptiness--
emotion only there because it isn't.