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21 " You The lines of your neck. The slope down to your shoulders. The unsteady blue welt of veins at your wrists, a sluggish estuary pounding into your fingers. Lungs that were once stars heaving air in and feet that are still walking despite it all dragging through the dust. You: A miracle with a smile like skies. A universe wearing human skin. "
― Elisabeth Hewer , Wishing for Birds
22 " Homesickness Standing under a million stars screaming up at them, PLEASE JUST TAKE ME HOME, with a voice rusty like the underside of boats, feeling it scratch at a throat like swallowed fish-bones. Making petitions to get the universe to care more, signing our names on any scrap of paper passed along like a single name could change the whole wide world. Could change galaxies. Tearing clothes, ripping skin, pleading, TAKE ME BACK, JUST TAKE ME BACK, I’m not willing to be a person any more. Science says I was part of a star once and I just— I want to be back there, always burning. These atoms could have been a lioness but here I am instead, these fragile limbs, and I never found out the returns policy. Take me back, take me back, I want to go home. Broken glass catching at my feet and the air too hot in my lungs. If I could have been anything why am I this? "
23 " You’re a defiant actof creation. "
24 " The sun comes under the clouds and I’m looking for Phaethon in the gaps. The hooves keep coming. I hear them in my sleep. Driving horses like an apocalypse but missing Death, War, Pestilence, Famine. They’re busy in another part of the world we’re pretending we can’t hear screaming. A "
25 " Other people make angels out of boys like you.But I? Choked-up lungs and erratic flight; Ileave too fast to find the light. "
26 " You think Achilles was of impressive descent? Touch me one more time. Maybe it’s time we found out what the daughter of the mightiest god can do. Look to your kingdoms— I am coming for them all. "
27 " Space Race Wanting the sky, wanting the horizon, wanting to travel further than anyone has ever gone. There were days when nobody knew what was over the other side of the sea. A time when wild places sprawled endless and unchanging. But here we are, too late to explore the Earth and too soon to venture into space. I want to sleep until the universe is open. I want to sleep until I can pour myself into it and never look back; chase galaxies like sailors once chased ports. "
28 " Weights He buys me a ring with, you are the only thing I am living for, engraved along the edge and when I slip it on that expectation burns me. I feel it branding my skin. I can’t sleep for the fire of those words against my finger. My hand gets so heavy I can’t lift it to his face and months go by as the weight slides up my arm and into my shoulder. By Christmas I am bent double and gasping. By Easter I can’t get off the floor. It’s too much, I try to whisper, too much to carry this. You can’t build a life on another human being. We’re foundations of sand. We’re Atlas buckling under the sky. "
29 " The Lie of Unfair Life I guess the grand lie is that the world has to be grim. Toughen up, kid, that’s just the way it is. The lie told when boys push other boys on the playground (because boys are tough, only) or when the looming adult says something that’s not fair or when your sister takes something that you wanted and never gives it back. Life isn’t fair. People are unkind and all our heroes are fighting themselves more than their foes. I’m not trying to start anything but what if we tried to teach our kids to change the world instead of resign themselves to it? So you’re born and you work and you die. We’ve got this line that says apathy’s the coolest. If you don’t care you’ve got it made. I slap the naïve label on and ask what we could do if we cared loudly about things and envied the people who feel deeply instead of the ones who trick us into thinking they don’t feel anything at all. Grass-roots happiness, optimism as a political act. All of us facing each other and admitting that we’ve got hearts ready to fill up and burst. "