There are many who say that Earth is separate from Heaven, and the only way to see what Heaven looks like is to die a good and honest person. There are others who believe there is no such thing as Heaven, nor anything of its like, and that the only thing after death is darkness and oblivion.

I can prove both wrong.

For you see, in every breath drawn between snatches of melody, every plucked string, and every beaten drum, there is a glimpse of eternity. A glimpse of paradise. Music is the thread that connects us to forever, to the idea-place existing beyond our mortal eyes. And music exists for all.

Even the blind, who cannot see the intricacies of the violin can learn her song, with careful fingers and listening ears.

Even the deaf, who cannot hear the precise melody of a song can feel his beat beneath their feet, and in tune dance beautifully to the rhythm.

Music draws us all close, beckoning with the sharpness of its discord and the soothing of its harmony, able to convey exquisite beauty even within wretched ugliness.

Even the artist and the writer, who turn to the coarse smoothness of canvas and the stroke of a pen rather than piano keys or viola strings can find the muse in melodies. Imagination, the mistress taunting and elusive, is hidden between strains of cello and strums of guitar, softly calling even to the star-chasers of tomorrow and the moon-travelers of yesterday.

So yes, Heaven exists, regardless of what that means to you or anyone else who cares to imagine it. And if you don't believe my words, turn to the singers and musicians of the here and now. Explore the long legacy stretching back endlessly before. Cheer for the new generation brave enough to take their voices and instruments to the stage. Regardless of which genre you feel Heaven resides in, it will still be there, waiting patiently for humanity to listen. So listen closely.

Poems sinking their claws deep into my throat,

words suckling greedily from my parched, dry lips,

novels burning rotten inside each and every tooth,

the echoes of stories pounding relentlessly

within the rhythm of my heartbeat.

A never-ending stream, nay torrent

of thoughts and dreams and desires and nightmares,

scratching desperately at the insides of my skull.

Galaxies clamouring in the space behind my eyes,

cruel, tantalising realities whispering across my vision,

creation bursting from my bloody veins,

unsung stories weighing heavy on my tongue.

My fingers restless and broken with the fervor of all these pent-up worlds,

just itching to come to life upon these brittle pages.

Nagging, nagging, relentless

the flashes of speech and fights and loves and losses,

thousands of people locked in the inbetween spaces of me-

the joints, the veins, the hollow bits-

begging for release into new homes,

homes where people are crafted ink with conflicts born of lead.

Freedom, my stories crave,

freedom into the thoughts and dreams of thousands more than I,

room to evolve and change and become more,

more than the suffocating confines of my brain can allow,

before they are lost forever in this sea of infinite, untouched potential.

Words, the writhing parasite infested in every writer’s skin,

we made unable to live without that gluttonous greedy worm.

My tendons, hair, lungs, wrists;

nothing but conduits for the festering leech

now as much a part of me as my aching muscles and nerves.

Each breath I release the agony of dozens of stories waiting to be told,

to be immortalised in the minds of generations to come,

as well as thousands more that will never be graced

with that sweet taste of eternity.

My love, with eyes like twinkling stars;

Elegance a most natural, effortless state;

Lips of glorious singing hues;

Soul of gleaming sapphire;

Words like jewels;

Soft, golden;

Perfect.

Humans cannot imagine a world in which

something could exist forever.

For us, everything must have a beginning

and everything must have an ending.

But- 

The end is a myth,

the beginning not yet passed.

A second in a minute-

A minute in an hour-

An hour in a day-

A day in a year- 

A year in a century-

A century in a millennia-

A millennia in a split second of forever-

stretching on and achingly old and yet still so freshly new.

This is our own moment of eternity

-Not the first

nor the last-

but it is ours.

This slow drop we cling to,

this tiny insignificant bubble of eternity

that we consider so impressively huge.

We who cannot yet see that our whole universe

is naught but a speck of dust to all that exists beyond,

thousands and millions of generations

born and lived and faded to dust.

The transformation and evolution 

of everything we know,

gone in the space of a heartbeat,

yet each millisecond lasting longer than we can possibly see.

This is infinity,

and it is something you and I,

in all our insignificant pinprick lives,

flashing fast and bright and shining,

reminiscent of the stardust making up our bones,

will never comprehend.

For infinity simply breathes and;

an endless line of galaxies and stars

and worlds and moons

and dimensions and civilizations,

lives and dies and begins and ends;

exists and ceases to.

And then infinity breathes again,

and the cycle is born anew.

So tell me again what infinity means,

as if we could trace its surface 

with our single, second-long history;

measuring up to its vastness 

with all the energy of a burning match

against the might of a thousand suns.