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For Girls Who Want to Eat the Sun by Catherine O’Brien
FOR GIRLS WHO WANT TO EAT
THE when you are sixteen, swallow the solar system. call it hot or wet or violent or some other word SUN the real poets love. in the place between your ribs, hope that you are god, and remember that god doesn’t rewrite her stories. say what you feel when it’s still raw and bleeding and untouchable. don’t let anybody read it. remember that you were born at the bottom of a swimming pool where no one could touch you and that you ate the sun as a teenage girl. relish in it. you are everything.
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a year later, sit on the fire escape and paint the sky vermillion and chartreuse and other pretentious shades of red. flip pedestrians the bird. you know everything. wonder if you would die if you turned a triple flip and hit the concrete. resolve that you would, but only if your head hit first. everybody always talks about what splattered brain would look like, but not the sound of it. from the fire escape, see the alley and an oily puddle from behind where the car is parked, but know that nuclear waste can’t touch you. remember you were born at the bottom of a swimming pool. close your eyes, and you are still there. say you won’t ever be small like that again. you won’t.
