The no-two-snowflakes
phenomenon set my brain
off into a million different
fragments of star, each
looking down on the world
from afar.

You were already up
there, just waiting
to tear
it apart, or maybe not.
You didn’t need sweet
tea so you swirled in
apathy where I took
honey, and you turned
to the screen while
I watched the sheen
of gold
protecting little pockets
of air like they were
all that mattered.
If I protected you that way
you’d say you weren’t
worth my time.
No time is worth
anything, when you’re
going to run out.

Run out to where?

We took still lives in
photography but I couldn’t
bring in honey or pockets
of air or the raindrop
that froze on the airplane
window with ice shattering
and spiraling up around
it, but with the intent to
put the stardust in everything
I touched I arranged
the things for us
since you had something
kind of maybe more important
to do.
You like orange, right?
Yours still looked better
than mine.

Your mind is still in flight.
I wonder if you see the
fragments of ice
on the window of the
emergency exit row.

So snowflakes are no different
than fingerprints,
and neither is made
of stardust bright enough
to make sense
to you.
We’ll all be up there
soon enough, you say.
Whether stardust
or dust.
You love Mersault,
in an indifferent sort
of way.

But I zoom in on these
oranges and the ridges don’t
match, the RGB codes of
every combination of
orange shadow are off
by a letter
and no two oranges are
the same, I take two
photos without moving the camera
and yet something’s
changed.

It takes conscious effort
for me to be the type
of person I’d be friends with
but you do it so easily.
And if you recognize
that as unusual, it’s
one of a kind
just like everything else.

No two anything.
No matter what I look
at, it’s
still life
and I’m still living it.

It’s a hard choice.
You made the same one.
But it was different.

Look up.