And He Told Me That I Was Apollo 13 On The Very Last Day-

and he told me that i was Apollo 13 on the very last day-

of the year where we cried over things that we meant to go wrong or go right, little lives that we played from paris to l.a. on an eastward bound plane or the train that you took across empty lands with open hands and a dream that we could be more than we are, our broken-down scarred beating hearts, bursting lungs and minds full up of hope and the stars we see in our arms, magic and mystery and innocent mischief; a rocket taking off in our eyes, a year bending into place like a piece of a puzzle you can’t quite see has escaped, something you didn’t know you were missing until you felt the edges line up, all systems go three two one pushing off of the ground to fly up away like he always said you could do he told me i was his only dream and the stars he had looked for he found in my heart with the love of a daughter a child of his own and he kissed me goodbye, set me off on my own through the dark into space, helmet clasped around my face like the mission he loved galaxies up above said shoot for the stars don’t forget who you are and when the clock strikes twelve tonight you’ll come home and it’ll be alright set down on the face of the moon, know you’re where you belong and the world turns anew in a year without you

he told me that i was Apollo 13 and that if i believed what i dreamed- right before he left i said i know who i am and that it was because of you; you taught me what i know (i know) and everywhere i roam, i’ll see you on the road

THE VERY LAST DAY :: o.m.

2016

atomic theory

before they knew what electrons & 
protons & neutrons were 
they thought that the smallest unit was an atom & they based all their theories off that

i had an entire theory of life laid out & 
it was my plan & i had rules: 
to do this, you act like this & you say this & you don’t ever tell anybody anything, you hear me, & everything 
was made up of just one thing, 
it was nothingness & dark matter & sort-of stars

& when i found you that changed everything.

someone once told me that you never really touch anything 
& what you feel is just electrons repelling & being repelled 
so when i hold you i’m not even touching you.

i just keep pushing you away.

did atomic theory explain how we were made of such little things 
& we still managed to be such big things, how were we built from invisible to this 
because afterwards & there’s always a before & an after, 
before we realised, before we understood & the after

the after & when the world changed.

because now? someone’s telling you nothing’s ever touching anything & everything’s a lie. 
that’s not a feather that’s an electron pushing against an electron, 
that’s not a breeze it’s electrons that’s not a heart beat 
it’s just your blood rushing in & out & the pulsing of your skin in time with the channels of your heart it’s not love it’s electrons 
& you can’t even tell what measure this life is playing on. 
you say three fourths time & this atomic theory says antiparticles & dark matter & mozart’s third symphony all in the same breath like it makes sense.

somehow the music is made of everything too?

& it’s like being told all your life that everything is made of red yellow & blue 
& then someone comes along to tell you no, those colours aren’t right. 
you say red and blue make purple but then they tell you 
you can take red & get purple from it with no blue & it’s not even purple, 
it’s this colour you’ve never seen before in your life.

but isn’t it beautiful? & can’t it still be beautiful even if you don’t understand?

so right now even the ground you’re standing on is pushing away from you
& it’s electrons, 
the colours pulled out of something they said had no definition, 
a point to a line & there’s a field around you made up of negative, impossible things.

we could be such beautiful creatures.

& everything’s made of atoms & atoms are made of electrons & 
even the impossible has to come to life somehow 
& the atomic theory didn’t say anything about the consequences of being made from improbabilities & music & mathematical equations, 
boiling down even the world to smaller & smaller parts until there’s nothing left to see.

it’s all just electrons pushing against each other & so you made a new one

& the atomic theory said if you think you’re just electrons & protons & neutrons repelling, attracting, circling around each other this body is just a container you are energy waiting to be released you can touch & love & yes, you are made in miniatures & models of positive, negative, built into numbers built into cells built in organs built into bodies built into lungs

you are lungs screaming & eyes seeing & you are atoms & electrons & gravity bringing you down & you are the “&” after every word i say because when i met you instead of “or” we found the electron & that changed everything.

occupation day

a girl walks in wearing a NASA shirt and galaxy print leggings, everyone thinks oh, rockets, she’s got the glasses to be an engineer. she raises her hand to ask, is the never-ending void an acceptable job? there was a help wanted sign on the desk of the universe and i’m attempting to fill the position. a pencil two rows over gets pulled in by her gravity (purple with black and blue sparkles) and she just smiles, tosses it back out past her edges and says you’re lucky it wasn’t turned into spaghetti. the physics goes over their head. all over her paper she observes and draws particles and she knows that by doing this she changes what they are but maybe if she didn’t notice them they wouldn’t exist at all. later when the teacher calls on her she says quantum mechanics and the formula for how long it takes to reach the ground because this time an entire desk rolled over to her, the focus of the room. it's an occupational hazard, drawing things in. red and blue logo and she thinks there’s some light inside it just can’t get out past her event horizon and she wants to know has anyone ever heard of something coming out of a black hole, or anyone coming back? her shoes have constellations like her freckles and no one noticed when they winked, twinkled, she shimmered out of existence. she was going to prove wormholes and timeless stars and maybe dead cats she was just waiting for her rocket to take off the ground. empty desk and David Bowie and the occupational hazards of being a black hole that even in your lack of existence everyone is pulled in by your void, the spaces in between stars and the letters on her t-shirt spelling out G A L A X Y where she left blank spaces for compensation. she’s somewhere out there tearing up a storm or aurora borealis, shining green-blue lights so far past herself she could never lose them. entire worlds and universes she could swallow in an instant with her big, hungry eyes. always looking up saying is there more? and knowing every star by name. a girl walks out of the room, into the office of the universe and applies for the position to fill the spaces, checks all the boxes until she’s told yes. supernova bursts forth from the room but she still says do you think anyone could ever find the edges? and runs chasing after it, laughing, crying, filling up the void.

you are waiting in between. ans Meer- to the ocean.

excerpt? wip

chain of gold

love her for it, and in spite of it; for this she will love you. and of this, nameless in its entirety, something good will grow. do not doubt this. do not forget this. for anything, for everything, for this: love her love her love her.

a love poem to the universe, beyond comprehension

how do you tell someone that without them you would be dead? without this i would be nothing. out of the entire world, i can only think of three things that saved me, and the universe is made of this in its entirety: flashing lights, the dark vastness and the endless possibility that lies within hope. you may be an atrophy lying on a white hospital bed. do you think the world is ever scared of its own existence lying restless in the middle of the night always tossing and turning in its bed of stars, it never stops rolling across the empty skies. always dreaming fitfully through the spaces. do you ever think like the world says “we are the thoughts some mind misplaces” are we accidental miracles not miracles catastrophes almost forgotten not forgotten misconceived for misconception. the world is larger than the girl. the girl still thinks like the world can hear her, crickets with broken wings and no violin strings to play. not everything is magic in this infinity, some are larger than others like this flower is faker than this flower is still realer than you. this bag is larger than the things inside it, it is a vessel or a container for what it holds but it is more. asks is there more is there more is there more said the girl when the universe answered said that can’t be all there is to this said there are no edges said the people assembled in the front row to watch the universe explode, behind a glass box that someone found to keep out radiation. you are a container and the universe said duly noted kept containing like it was supposed to, all the black matter anti-gravitrons particle accelerators science experiments, every paper mache volcano with mentos and diet coke it could remember, didn’t know it was larger than what it held inside it. couldn’t remember past the galaxies careening about laughing and screaming past each other or the flashing lights or the supernova or the little girl who wouldn’t let the crickets die in their own arthritic apathy because nobody wished for wishes any more and nobody asked but she did saying a list of things she had decided were true in the absence of anyone to tell her otherwise and the first thing was irrelevant because it was an important concept to know and the second one she couldn’t remember was a good excuse because everybody believed you and the third one was heartbreaking, beautiful and sad and it said that you are larger than the things inside you you are more than you contain added together even multiplied, the girl is smaller than the world and without this she would be dead and nobody quite understood what i meant when i said this saved me but the universe loved her for it, in its own way.