buy me on the black market like the instability I am.
watch me hurtle through negative space backwards,
the planet-wide catastrophe of a sun-sized storm in me.
Call me Carbon-14.
it’s the latest piece of my galaxy-sized identity, another chemical
small enough to wage nuclear war.
you’re witnessing my radioactive decay,
the deterioration of everything I used to be into
everything I might be,
a kind of reaction that happens when one of my ‘downs’
becomes an ‘up,’
no aces up my sleeves or full houses of face cards in spades,
but I’ve got straight sevens,
protons neutrons electrons, carbon to nitrogen.
beta decay, the mass production of passive procrastination;
second in command, sidekick sidetracking heroes.
Call me Nitrogen standard 14.
watch me decay into the air that you breathe,
seventh most common gas in the Milky Way galaxy,
keeping things fresh and stainless like my steel armor,
try and make me combust but I’m fireproof, bulletproof,
balanced and on my toes in a defensive position,
fists raised for the fight that you’re going to put up.
my axis is more stable than yours. step into the rings of saturn,
ring the bells to start the rounds, champion takes home the stars,
wraps orion’s belt around their waist and buckles it tight with nuclear waste.
everyone loves an underdog story, but only when they know,
positively, that the underdog will win.
with you and me, it’s a 50/50 on who exactly has the upper hand
and who exactly is going to win, but I’ll make bets with the elements around me,
the carbon that I used to be hashing out 20’s and oxygen
claiming she’s not one for gambling.
baby, you’re in my lungs, you’re in my corner of the ring.
she’ll slip in a 50 like my chances, and I’ll pretend that I don’t notice.
phosphorus is too fiery to root for me,
he’s more of a heavyweight believer than me.
Call me contagious
when my knuckles bloom across your jaw and knock away
all of your sensibility, stability, bruises like moons
as the mirror shatters every reflection of who I used to be.
Call me Carbon-14, but know that I am radioactive,
actively changing, reigning champion of breaking perceptions,
and you’re just the impression of the death that I’m carbon-dating.