Sitting at the kitchen table,
The Beauty and the Beast soundtrack
Humming through an earbud,
My mom streaking the stars
Across my fingernails,
Dreams and ideas a melody
Floating through my mind;
I just re-read
The Fault in Our Stars,
And now I’m thinking that one day
If our entire race is captured
By aliens, there will be a book
Of humanity,
And each of us will have a character,
No matter how metaphorical,
Etched into the pages,
And what matters will be that our hearts
Pulsed along with the earth,
And we painted ourselves with the stars
We flicked fingers toward
While sitting in our parents’ laps,
Humming our love and hope,
Dreams and ideas;
Maybe
My nail polish is to remind myself
Who I am,
And maybe it’s for one day
When an alien tributes one word to me
In the boundless book
Of humanity.
Comments
This theme, of leaving a message for the aliens, strikes a definitive chord in me (I once wrote a piece called "To the Aliens Employing Their Best Cryptologists" about a pair of sisters who bury a time capsule for ETs to read one day). I think thinking about humanity on a broader scale, and about our place within the universe, offers an interesting opportunity for reflection on the way we treat ourselves, others, and the world we live on. Really lovely work.
Thank you! I think the topic of it is really cool too.
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