Space Struck

by Paige Lewis

If he’d ask me how I’m feeling, I’d give him the long version—I feel as if I’m on the moon listening to the air hiss out of my spacesuit, and I can’t find the hole.

I’m the vice president of panic, and the president is missing.

Tell me, how do I steady my gaze when everything I want is motion?

a miracle is anything that God forgot to forbid.

I move through life like I’m trying to avoid a stranger’s vacation photo.

Where everyone hurts and gets hurt, and the hurt can be heard asking the same question—Why isn’t anybody stopping this? And the powerfully worse take a vote, they elect their answer carefully: Stopping what?

My ghost drops by so often I no longer feel obligated to offer it our good coffee.

More than anything, I want the ability to respond perfectly to tragedy

I wonder if we name storms because naming is the only power we’re left with.

Our skeletons are built to stand even when certain parts break or go missing.

I can’t see the stars, which means there aren’t any stars left.

We are only remembered as cruel when what we harm does not die quickly.

Do they still count, these hours I’ve spent on my own? Do they still count if I’m saving all of my shiniest thoughts for you?

Consider how fast its throat will be choked by its own growing.