This poem is for anyone who has ever tried to hold water in their fingertips
and stick the solid of their sweaty hands
against the fluidity of existence itself
and tried to grasp it
and paint upon it’s skin with your fingers
only to realize it’s skin is paint itself
and suddenly
your perception of canvas melts into the floor
and the floor melts into space
and are nothing but a host of mixing colors
with floating, scarred hands
we are liquid
I’m not trying to sound like an angsty teenager when I ask you this:
have you ever looked at the stars?
I bet they do whatever they want
Think about it!
There’s no gravity there!
No rules
stigmas
or parents
I bet they just float in and out of social constructions
like the air does with our lungs
and doesn’t matter
which particles of stardust mix with which
they just dance
I am realizing now
That we are happier when we see ourselves like stars
Because when you close your eyes
there really is no gravity here
the labels that confine us like cubicles
can be erased with the pencil of perception
you see, if a woman with hairy legs
is still a woman
then maybe, femininity transcends appearance
and maybe Beauty is a sandcastle
Cause it can be built and washed away
in the same day
and maybe intelligence is more than a number
and people are more than their possessions
and race is not the stereotype it’s chained to
we are more than that jail cell of
gender role GPA 150 characters in our bio
confined to four claustrophobic corners
we have effectively turned watercolor
into graph paper
This poem is for anyone who has ever tried to grasp the universe in their fingertips
well,
I learned in class that
it’s always changing
and I know
the night sky would be a lot less interesting
if it was crammed into a box
therefore
I know
we’ve successfully made ourselves less interesting
because human identity is the universe
it’s running water
it’s an anti-gravity question mark
pouring the alphabet onto a spinning page
that we keep trying to read
it’s an expanding stellar space of endless potential energy
stretching its arms into the infinite unknown
permeating the sweat and skin
of every star in that seductive solar system
but
we let little fingertips with four corners try to domesticate our infinity
I guess we all forget
that
nothing can catch us.
nothing can catch us.
