Interesting Facts about Space

by Emily R. Austin

I look like my mom. Strangers have approached me before to ask if I am her daughter. I am taller than she is, and have someone else’s hands, but I am often told that I am the spitting image of her.

When I think of her, rather than call her or text her a message that says something like, Hey, I’m thinking of you, I tell her interesting facts about space. I text her, Hey mom, did you know sunsets on Mars are blue?

They look like women who have packaged themselves fully to oblige the male gaze. They look like people who would be baffled when a woman with long hair gets a pixie cut.

bet she tells Gina she loves her. I bet she doesn’t know anything about stars.

“You can have a mother and a doll. That’s it.” “That’s not enough.” “It’s plenty.”

We keep looking upward until she spots the first meteor. She gasps and points, and I watch her face light up rather than the sky.

I considered explaining that the source of men’s physical strength does not actually come from their attraction to women, and that I was probably weaker than most of them because they did Pilates.

I wake up and immediately check if Polly texted me. I feel oddly relieved and oddly disappointed to see she hasn’t. I simultaneously hope she never texts me again, while also hoping that she writes me right now. I reread our text conversation. Maybe I should write her. I could say, Good morning. Or maybe I should block her.

I was playing at the time. I recall chewing on my Polly Pocket’s clothes. I looked at her, confused, with a slobbery doll’s rubbery dress hanging from my mouth.

“Do you think it’s more likely that a mouse, a ghost, or a burglar would take a grape?” I ask Vin.

I know it is ridiculous, but for some reason, bald men are sitting in the same room in my mind as murderers, monsters, and John Wayne Gacy. I do not know why they are in there. It is not a choice I made.

She and I were just speaking about my childhood. She had me answer an extensive list of questions. This is the result. I feel like I just completed a warped personality quiz and instead of finding out which dog breed matches my soul I am being officially branded mentally ill, traumatized, and neurodivergent.