V

It’s too cold outside
But I’ve never seen so much-
I don’t know the word
It’s pretty in a way that
Nothing else is pretty

“Come here, honey”
My head twirls in a swift tornado
Of bouncy brown curls
Towards Daddy’s voice

He points me to look through
The long paper towel roll
(He corrected me, it’s a telee scop)

I stick an eye to the lense
“WOAH!”
I yell, giggling
It’s something new!
Round and alive

“It’s a planet. It’s called Pluto”
Daddy explains
“Small, like you. It’s far away”

I don’t want to sound silly
So I don’t say
That I want to go visit Pluto

If he’s so far away, isn’t he lonely?

IX

We learned about planets today
In science
I doodled on my page
Bored by teacher’s droning voice

I drew the planets
So I wasn’t really off task, right?
I drew Saturn and her rings
I drew Neptune and his swirly blue icing

I tried to draw Pluto, so far away
From the light of Sun’s joy
But I didn’t know how to capture the subtle
Tug that I’m sure he feels to be with the others
While being shunned

I learned today that
Nobody ever noticed Pluto
And when they finally did
He only had a series of years
Till he was deliberately demoted
From the solar system

Teacher only mentioned
Him out of obligation
Not out of admiration
Or respect like the other planets

What does he feel?

XII

Mom was upset again tonight
How is it possible to have lungs so loud
And yet nobody else in the neighborhood
Can hear?

Dad is not here, on a business trip
I called his number

“Hi Dad.”
“Hey honey, everything okay?”
He’s a day’s drive away
He’s been on trips before
“Yep. Have fun on your trip.”
“Okay, I love you, honey.”

I hung up
He knows I love him, right?

Mom is asleep
Brother is asleep
I’m sitting in the stiff
Chair by my window
Waiting for exhaustion
To untie my stomach so I can sleep

While I wait
I talk to him
Like in a book
As if he’s going to talk back

I’m mature
I know better
But I know I feel better
Talking to him
He’s a million miles away
He can’t do anything about what I say

“I wish I could come live with you”
He twinkles somewhere
Far out in the cosmos
“I’m so tired of…”
And suddenly I’m five again
I don’t know the word
I want to say
“I’m so tired.”

I stay up three more hours waiting
For him to say something back
I send him deep wants
In little waves I force to travel outwards
To let him know that someone wants to talk to him

XIV

I got mom to calm down tonight
Lines of age etched into
The corners of her
Expressive disapproval, even asleep

This is the closest I have come
To being the rebellious child
I snuck out the back door
And now sit in the back yard

Mom would be mad if she found out
I was anywhere but my bedroom
At this hour
Oh well

I pull a notebook from
A stiff fold in the blue blanket
That I stuff over my shoulders
As I twist my legs into some
Warm, unbreakable shape
On the freezing concrete
Of November

“Hey”
He silently greets me
“When do I get to come visit you?”
He silently contemplates
Doesn’t answer
“Tell me I get to come visit you”
He doesn’t tell me
“I want to meet you”

Maybe I can come out here again tomorrow
Maybe he’ll answer me then
I have three more nights till
I go to Dad’s house
I talk to Pluto more when I’m here anyways

I click my pencil
And write
Making sure I don’t
Open the words to him
These are mine alone
If he’s going to be so rude

I scrawl:
Take me earthly tendril
And lift me to the stars

Pull me string of mortality
And snap the taught morbidity

Let me giggle and gossip
With Venus and the starlets

Show me Orion
And let him tell me his tails

Let me learn of wars
From Mars

Let me swim
In suspended seas in Neptune’s cheek

Help me sip from the Little Dipper
And give me gulps from the Big Dipper

And if nothing else
Sling me to Pluto

Let me live in his shadow
While nobody else gives him a glance

Let me whisper to him
And feel his emotions for eternity

Let me call him my favorite planet
While they all look past

Let me be forgotten with him
Let us each no longer be alone

: I leave the paper in the book
Instead of tear it out as I normally do

Looking up, his glimmer
Glistens in my eyes
“Let me come to you”
<i>no</i> he presses back
Into my forehead

I don’t want to talk to him anymore.
I go to sleep
And ignore him every night
As he tries to whisper
For me to come back

XV

He yells at me
I don’t pay him any mind
you’re not alone
I walk down the stairs
With the same
Empty face I’ve worn
For months
i’m here with you
“No you’re not”
I hiss
stop
I don’t stop
I close my door
it’s not time
I shift it out from under my dresser
it’s not time
I breathe in
not time
I bite my tongue
not time
I pull seven shallow
Drags along a hidden patch
Of skin
NO
He’s right, of course
I don’t have the guts
To control if tonight
Is the time
i’m here for you
He’s lying
So I push him away
As I push the red tingles under
Maroon stained sheets
I sleep another dreamless night

XVI

“Hey”
hey
“Thank you”
for what?
“You’re always there for me”
i always will be
“I’m glad we’re talking again”
let’s never stop
“Okay, Pluto”

And we happily whisper to each other
In the silences between moments in the day
And meet in the scapes of dreams

He pulls and pushes me
With a tide stronger than the moon’s
And bends my thoughts away from darkness

He councils me through my bad choices
And sits with me through my consequences

He follows me in my excitements
And slithers the words I need to hear
Through the canals of my ear

And someday
(Though not any day soon
As he’s shown me)
We will meet

In a crowded void of nothingness
Of space
Just the two of us
For the rest of time

And we will be happy