You told me to look the universe right in the eye
but I don't think I'm brave enough,
not quite yet, because all I am thinking
is about what you found when you looked
and saw the nucleus, everything-
all the feral electons- around it, and
the things you once thought you could hold
slipping away from you, from the spaces
hollowed out of you, until you finally felt it:
the emptiness of space.

I was plucking at my eyelashes as though petals grew there
and snapping bone structures
into uneven halves-
      giddy on the tilt of things being skewed
       I cut myself where the crossed bones
       met my crossed fingers-
tossed over my shoulder,
salt rubbed into the wound,
I looked up and saw the sky emptied of stars.
All that wishful thinking
(more like superstition, now, than cognition)
grounded on
absolutely
nothing.

Being free to leave and not being ready.
Crying (some good will come of this).
Hearing another human cry.
Actual growth and the grief in it.
Impatience growing here.
Fate, if there is such a thing- having other plans.
Recurring attempts to build character.
Inherrent corruption.
For the sake of argument.
Tastless excess.
Exhausted Christmas lights.
What crossed my mind.
A language nobody else understands.
What costs you when it's arbitrary.
Exclusion.
Indistinct goodbyes.
Goodbye.

Y.

That perfect letter.
Wishbone.
Fork in the road.
Emptied glass awaiting a refill.
If you look close enough, tiny prints of sparrows in sand.
The half of the chromosome couple half of us don't have.
A question we ask, again and again.
Second to last- almost there- in the alphabet.

Coupled with a L, and you can describe
the way in which what is done is done.

Modest X. Kiss kiss. Legs closed.
Y or N? Yes, of course.

It's a peace sign,
upside down.

Y- a Greek letter- joined the Latin alphabet after
the Romans conquered Greece
in the first of all centuries we've counted by their numerals.

Y is a double agent- a vowel, a consonant,
or both?

Before Y was given to us, we couldn't talk of someone smiling happily
or know to help someone in need quite desperately.

Before Y we couldn't ask for the answers we wanted.
I don't think we could have been happy.