In Relation To

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In Relation To

Published In: Rust+Moth, Spring 2014

Finalist in the motionpoems contest “Arrivals & Departures”

©2014 Susan Milchman

I feel like you left weeks ago,

but it’s only been three hours.

the scaffolding of your dismantling

climbing up my windows.

Days are longer than years on the planet Mercury.

do my eyes look paler to you?

because when I’m on fire,

they twist like a snake into the color of snow.

and when I’m falling,

they skid into blue.

but not the pretty kind of blue.

Messages from your brain travel along your nerves

at up to 200 miles an hour.

people often state the relevance of time

after the unimaginable happens.

It happened so fast is the universal translation for

This can’t be real.

tragedy doesn’t mail out invitations.

no need to buy a new dress.

The twilight zone is the layer of ocean above

the dark zone and below the sunlit zone.

how long do you have to live before

you feel alive?

how long do you have to live before

you feel dead?

do you ever live long enough to have

both of these feelings dance together

in the lifespan of your favorite song?

The Sun is 400 times larger than the moon.

some things can’t be boiled down

into digestible nuggets of fact.

some things can’t be taught.

like how to outrun a hurricane.

or how to swim across the ocean

without any hands.

or how to watch someone you love

go mad.

About 95 percent of the stuff in the universe

is invisible. 

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All photos copyright Susan Milchman on Instagram. To see more, follow her @susan.milchman