Maggie Odom

Pluto

Once I wrote a love
song to a planet.

            I only fall in love with
           things that I can’t hold on to:
           everything and nothing,
           things too big and too small,
           things made of gas and
           dust, so broken they shatter
           when I try to touch them.

            I can’t seem to fall
            in love the way that would end up
            happily ever after.

Happily ever after doesn’t exist
outside the asteroid belt.

Pluto: the
non-planet, the
dwarf, left out in the
cold. Pluto
sits alone and begins to
crumble under
the exhaustion of
existence.

Once I fell in love
with a planet
            because I saw my
            reflection in the silvery mist of
            its gas and dust. After all,
            gas and dust are
            made up of
            broken pieces, so I fit
            right in.

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