Julie and Catalin Write a Poem
It's been 14 years since we wrote this! I think about it once a while. It's nice!
Hi Catalin! Hope you are fantastic!
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Once a girl in my biology class asked if the sun had bones
I thought she was joking but she showed me a drawing
Red-blood-cell photons scattering from Helium patellas
Green sternum rose from the ends of sunflowers
It pulled at my ribcage like birdsong and nuclear fusion
SporadicΒ outburstsΒ of pain from the lungs emerge
And swallows me into the brightness of beautiful devastation
At that moment iΒ couldnβtΒ contain my earthΒ shattering screamingΒ Β Β
The girl in my biology class smiledβ¦because she knew
A pounding heart could never be replaced with a thousand bright suns
All the science in the world could never replace her bones
And when all the scientists wouldΒ gatherΒ around her luminous body
A thousand pieces of construction paper could not capture who she was
Her will was that she never be reduced to a medulla oblongata
Her momentum was so much that I could have sprouted dragonfly wings for her
In the coldness of the room dandelions sprang from her eyes
Shocked into silhouettes against her smoldering skin
You could see conjectures of a million stars that passed
Fingertip trails of dark stalking light
Drips from melting iciclesΒ surrounded in effortsΒ Β
A million heartbeats enveloping her somehow frozen tears
She couldnβt move through the mists of this blistering coldΒ
Too many humans and too much distance between constellations
Forgetting her promise, she turned her bones for the other side
They didnβt tell her how cold it would be
Blood was reaching out, lungs were almost bursting
But then one perfect thought: remember that you came from nothing
Remember the times when all was stardust and nothing more
Remember what it feels like to draw the sun on her bones
The curiosity for all past events crossed her mind with a rush
Each moment a lantern, like a distant firefly in the black night