They say it was remarkable, in every way, the whole world, but I never knew it.
They say it was called the Blue Planet, but I never saw it. I gaze upon it now but it’s not any blue I’ve ever known, only shades of brown and grey. It has a beauty of its own if you can see the beauty in scarred and broken things.
With each passing year the brown is lighter, the scars less deep and the atmosphere a little clearer.
They say one day it will be blue again, but I won’t be here to see it. They say without us it will thrive and I believe them. But they say a lot of things up here.
Up here is the only home I have ever known, here in this metal ark, patiently orbiting the earth with the hope of a race that ran out of time. It is in this tight confinement that I feel the punishment forced upon me by my ancestors of long ago, a punishment I don’t deserve for an act I did not commit.
I feel trapped in its loneliness, the darkness of space pressing in against me, keeping me waiting.
Yet, my home is a hopeful place, a place where we wait for a time when we can return to our precious planet below. As it orbits beneath us, it takes its time. I can only dream of a time when I can swim in its oceans and run through its forests. To have my feet planted firmly beneath me, I pretend to know what that would be like.
I pretend I’ve lived a thousand lives there and that I know all there is to know about my planet below, how ridiculous I am.
Daily, I gaze upon the planet I will never know, will never call home, and yet I still have a longing for it, I’m drawn to it as though it is still part of me, and my heart beats with its pulse. There is an instinct, an unconscious pull that calls to me through the dark of space. I feel it hum as it heals. I will it to heal faster so I can return to the place of my ancestors. I urge it, plead, beg, promise, and scream silently into the night. Does it hear me? Does it feel like a piece of itself missing like I do?

We are the punished, searching for redemption from an ancient debt, a debt not of our making but ours to pay. Yes, we are the punished, but we are also the hopeful. That is what drives us through the darkness: the promise to once again feel the warmth of the sun on our skin, the wind on our face, and to feel the pull of the earth around us. To be a part of what we once were… This chance to go home.
They say we will go home soon.
But they say a lot of things up here.