Hannah/saying/things

I have hesitated to publish poetry in my own online space since that would (I believe?) bar it from publication elsewhere. These days, though, I am trying to be a more active participant in deconstructing my own inner Capitalist Worker Drone, so it feels appropriate to eschew the potential for capital gain or personal acclaim and share art for the pure sake of sharing it.

Does that mean I’m done pursuing traditional publication? Hell no. Just not with these particular pieces of writing.

What follows are three poems from a private collection (as in: you can’t have it!) written circa 2023. Maybe you’ll see some other poems from it somewhere else someday. I had a really cool title in mind.

Enjoy my science poetry!

I.

PRINCIPLES OF ENTROPY

We are utterly animal for thinking that it could get any better from here. 

For marrying, for mortgaging homes, for sharing passwords. For saying hello. For paying hospital bills. For birthdays. For laundry. For children. For dinner. For assuming that things can do anything other than fall apart. 

Graveyards do not crack open and reassemble themselves into kindergarten classrooms. 

I will never get my old teeth back.

I cannot tell you what the vascular system has to do with human affection, 

I do not know why we call the beating heart the center of love. 

I do know that when that organ dies, this is the medical marker of the ending of you. 

‘Til then, I guess,  it pumps. 

I am animal and not above clinging to blood.

II.

QUANTUM PHYSICS SAYS I AM UNTOUCHABLE

The skies look like my eyes do: spring-grey, 

Apocalyptic, just that slight bit of yellow. 

There is always something hanging over you.

I can’t tell you about what’s hanging over me. 

Here are my hands, face up, 

And you can put in them whatever you want. 

Did you know that at our smallest 

We are never actually touching anything? 

Theoretically, your palm only hangs over mine — 

There is no real risk of impact. 

Except sometimes, when it happens. 

I’ve felt it: impossible as the sickly dry sunlight 

I can somehow see through the storm, 

And makes me just as afraid.

III.

WE / ARE THE UNLIKELIEST THING

I hear 

the hope 

is that space is a fabric bent by bold things.

I hear also

the fear 

is that the distance between things 

is not anything at all.

Fuckshit 

if you ask me.

If you ask me 

there is only anything 

where nothing is.

This nothing 

is only nothing 

for now.

There were many different nothings 

before there was something 

or someone to know about it.

Anything that can 

will.

Does this 

make sense?

I am the least alone 

alone 

but most afraid.

This is my bedroom 

and the walls are too far apart.

These are the corners they make 

from which anything could be watching.

I am still that kid 

standing at the lightswitch 

staring.

I count the nothings 

I will pass in the dark 

in which anything could happen.

I tell myself 

nothing can hurt you once you get there 

just get there 

you don’t even have to look.

This is the hope 

this is also the fear.