Faster Than 3.00x10^8 m/s

Imagine that every morning
with your breakfast
you consume a small portion of poison
in your orange juice.

{gross, who even drinks
orange juice? or has breakfast?}

not enough to kill you, of course,
but enough that you feel it.
You feel the effects all day.
You do this every morning
until the daily feeling that it gives you in your gut
has become all you know
You grow used to it.
You can't remember being without
the dull aching pain.
it becomes your way of life.

And then one morning
you skip the poison part of breakfast.
And all day
you feel better than you ever remember feeling.
you feel amazing.
You feel out of this world.
and yet you also feel
as though
you are
missing something...
missing a part of you.

that is what it feels like
waking up without you.

[I'm moving faster
than the speed of light
defying physics
slowing down time.
by the time you see me,
I'm already long gone]

Star-Struck

What would you say if I told you I wanted a star?
If I wanted someone to climb up into the sky,
and pick out a star, nice and bright and ripe,
and pluck it from the heavens,
and polish it with love,
and give it to me?

I'd keep it safe.

I'd keep it in a jar like a firefly,
hidden away from the world.
At night I would take it from its hiding place
and hold the jar close to me
and whisper all my secrets to it
as I fell asleep, bathed in its brightness.
maybe sometimes I would stay awake just to look at it
shining so brightly with love
and melt in its beauty.

Or maybe I would wear it on a necklace
or as a ring,
to keep it on me at all times.
During the day it would be an ordinary glass sphere,
but at night you'd be able to tell what it was.
I could sneak out to see you at 3 in the morning
wearing your star,
and light up the streets as it waved and winked at all its companions in the sky,
and I could glow with its fiery beauty and brightness,
and be star myself.
A little earth-bound sun, just for you.
I'd be your star. Your sun.

or maybe
I'd swallow it.
Take all of that light and beauty and fire and brightness and swallow it.
do you know what would happen then?
Do you know what happens when you swallow a star?
I do.

You
lose
your
heart.
The star consumes it.
and in place of a heart
you have a miniature sun
glowing in your chest.
Fueling you
keeping you alive
but
you'll have no heart.

What would you say if I told you I wanted a star?
What would you say if I told you
I already have one?