substack
(p.s. drag me!!!!!)
Star Stuff
Lately
I’ve been riddled
by the question of star stuff,
by the idea of us. I’m locked down
to the notion of as above
is below, to what starts with
must end with, to highway loop-
di-loops, to continuous
continuums of the now. Mostly
everything is inert, and I know
that when I show my baby brother
the underbelly of a turtle, he’ll marvel,
while I’ll just settle into it. Like how
I settle into almost everything
nowadays, like how the underbelly
of a turtle looks like the soft skin
of a man’s neck, like how
the soft skin of a man’s neck
reminds me of my own roughness,
and there is so much roughness
all around. And then,
there’s the next layer, the fact
that what cuts so deep
is the difference
between my roughness
and a softness, the conviction
that I am one and not the other,
but really, that they are both
the same, both of some distant star,
maybe borne from the same mother,
perhaps even twins. But still, my little brother
will fiddle with his touch and feel book,
and the thick cardboard of the pages
will make me squirm. He will feel
the tiger and soften, and he will even
make the sound. A quiet gargle,
and then, it’ll intensify. It will sound
and fill the whole room with little boy
gargling, with tiger sounds ringing out
in every crevice of the blue, the blue
bedroom. And then it will turn
into shrieking, the tiger sounds
coagulating into one large wail,
one sharp cry that will draw
long scratches down the wallpaper, cries
that will shatter the lightbulbs and ruffle
the sheets, cries that will turn the little boy
scared, cries my little brother did not know
were housed inside of him. I will need
to hug him, very tight and for very long,
and I will need to remind him
of his own sureness about the blue
room, the crumpled sheets, the cardboard
book. I will have to remind the boy
of the softness of the bed, of my arms,
of his own body. And then
he will understand how the difference
is the sameness, becomes
the sameness, is both different
and similar to the sameness. But I’ll
never get it. Because he will fall
asleep, asleep after settling into
the soft of the crumpled sheets. And I
will forever stumble over how
that could be. The soft,
of the crumpled sheets. Intuitively,
I’ll get it. I’ll settle into the idea
of it, into the logic of star stuff.
But I will not be comfortable.
I will not settle into them,
the sheets. So I will not
be able to sleep.
by the question of star stuff,
by the idea of us. I’m locked down
to the notion of as above
is below, to what starts with
must end with, to highway loop-
di-loops, to continuous
continuums of the now. Mostly
everything is inert, and I know
that when I show my baby brother
the underbelly of a turtle, he’ll marvel,
while I’ll just settle into it. Like how
I settle into almost everything
nowadays, like how the underbelly
of a turtle looks like the soft skin
of a man’s neck, like how
the soft skin of a man’s neck
reminds me of my own roughness,
and there is so much roughness
all around. And then,
there’s the next layer, the fact
that what cuts so deep
is the difference
between my roughness
and a softness, the conviction
that I am one and not the other,
but really, that they are both
the same, both of some distant star,
maybe borne from the same mother,
perhaps even twins. But still, my little brother
will fiddle with his touch and feel book,
and the thick cardboard of the pages
will make me squirm. He will feel
the tiger and soften, and he will even
make the sound. A quiet gargle,
and then, it’ll intensify. It will sound
and fill the whole room with little boy
gargling, with tiger sounds ringing out
in every crevice of the blue, the blue
bedroom. And then it will turn
into shrieking, the tiger sounds
coagulating into one large wail,
one sharp cry that will draw
long scratches down the wallpaper, cries
that will shatter the lightbulbs and ruffle
the sheets, cries that will turn the little boy
scared, cries my little brother did not know
were housed inside of him. I will need
to hug him, very tight and for very long,
and I will need to remind him
of his own sureness about the blue
room, the crumpled sheets, the cardboard
book. I will have to remind the boy
of the softness of the bed, of my arms,
of his own body. And then
he will understand how the difference
is the sameness, becomes
the sameness, is both different
and similar to the sameness. But I’ll
never get it. Because he will fall
asleep, asleep after settling into
the soft of the crumpled sheets. And I
will forever stumble over how
that could be. The soft,
of the crumpled sheets. Intuitively,
I’ll get it. I’ll settle into the idea
of it, into the logic of star stuff.
But I will not be comfortable.
I will not settle into them,
the sheets. So I will not
be able to sleep.