issue two / celestial
i walked circles around the galaxy
Natalie Nims
I pretend that I do not taste diesel and regret whenever I think of the distance
between the moon and I
the worms are crawling from the sidelines now
they just want to see the rain and maybe one day they’ll figure out where it comes from
at least they know the way back
a lightning strike hit my chest
and handed me my own heart
but it was altered by the skilled tailor of circumstance
so the organ bore the name Pluto
I left when the adrenaline was sour and the night was empty
the stars retired years ago
that's what they would tell me that every time I asked
sometimes Mars and Jupiter would fight with orange tinted storms
and Neptune would write me saturated poems overflowing with enviable metaphors
I reached the end of this glowing constellation
with the absence of gravity still in my hair
remembering how the man made satellites taught me to paint when it got lonely out there
which was a lot because I’d never heard such heavy silence
when my boots finally reached the soil
my heart lay exactly where I left it
and I thought of how the planets could have been dented through the millions of years they had
existed
but never were
I held the organ in my hands and it resembled a memory not yet formed
so in the midst of a slowly wilting storm, I said:
‘Pluto is a lovely name.’
between the moon and I
the worms are crawling from the sidelines now
they just want to see the rain and maybe one day they’ll figure out where it comes from
at least they know the way back
a lightning strike hit my chest
and handed me my own heart
but it was altered by the skilled tailor of circumstance
so the organ bore the name Pluto
I left when the adrenaline was sour and the night was empty
the stars retired years ago
that's what they would tell me that every time I asked
sometimes Mars and Jupiter would fight with orange tinted storms
and Neptune would write me saturated poems overflowing with enviable metaphors
I reached the end of this glowing constellation
with the absence of gravity still in my hair
remembering how the man made satellites taught me to paint when it got lonely out there
which was a lot because I’d never heard such heavy silence
when my boots finally reached the soil
my heart lay exactly where I left it
and I thought of how the planets could have been dented through the millions of years they had
existed
but never were
I held the organ in my hands and it resembled a memory not yet formed
so in the midst of a slowly wilting storm, I said:
‘Pluto is a lovely name.’
Natalie Nims is a teen author from Ontario. As an art lover as well as an artist, you can probably find her passionately ranting about her favorite pieces. Natalie also enjoys listening to 60's music at 3pm on a Saturday, watching hour long video essays, or struggling to decide on one author bio. Her work has been published or forthcoming in Musing Publications, healthline zine, and The Cloudscent Journal.