Size / / /

I chose solitude for a career,

away from people

and the curse of interaction,

the first footprint on strange worlds,

and sometimes the last.

Pemeisia for example,

at the far end of how much isolation

even I could celebrate.

So black,

 

   so bleak,

it could have been the corporate symbol of my heart.

Despite the ice that melted a little of itself

out of sheer boredom,

the planet could not make a decent year

out of its desolation.

Time was like kids exploring an abandoned house.

Nothing to play with so it left.

Its sun was too far away to be an issue,

a speck, like kindling

for its own distant fire.

The planet turned but like a baby

in the crook of the dark's arms.

It could not rise to adulthood either.

Life, in fact, was out of the question.

Wind moved the surface around

like an endless game of musical chairs.

but nothing in the air

ever went to ground.

Water was caged, minerals suffocated.

Gases bumped against each other,

formed nothing new.

What did my report say:

one word . . . uninhabitable.

I was in a place no one could live.

And, for a month, he did.




John Grey can be reached by email at jgrey10233@aol.com. You can find more of John's work in our archives.
Current Issue
4 Nov 2024

“Did you know,” the witch says, “that a witch has no heart of her own?”
Outsiders, Off-worlders {how quickly one carves out a corner of the cosmos, / claims a singular celestial body as [o u r s] in the scope of infinity}
Lunar enby folks across here
Wednesday: The 2024 Ignyte Award for Best Novel Shortlist, Part Two 
Friday: A Place Between Waking and Forgetting by Eugen Bacon 
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Issue 2 Sep 2024
Issue 26 Aug 2024
Load More