Space

Many rumors have been fluttering about this city. 

I try to allow myself to become so bored, all that’s left to do is write. 

It is the eighth day of the month. 

I am bad at conceptualizing quantity. 

I’ve been pushing myself through days like 

I am privy to extra gravity. 

Everyone seems troubled. There is something “in the air.” 

We can no longer blame it on the sun. 

Well, now what. 

//

Dealing with a dopamine addiction. 

Dealing with dryness. 

My skin a total jailbird. 

Breaking out at any opportunity. 

We stood on the roof and considered the sun. 

//

There is a concept of awe that events that apply to all of humanity inspire. 

The NASA feed commentary ran religious and then nationalist and then religiously nationalist. 

I have said before how “space” is a little kid ass manifest destination. 

I refrained from repeating that line in front of my friend’s neighbor

who self-identified as a “space nerd.” 

My uncle worked for NASA.

And now he is gone. 

Though that relationship is not causal or even correlative. 

When I think of space I think of nothing.

//

It’s cute! I kept repeating, when the clouds finally cleared. 

It’s just so cute! 

The world grew very dark.

I felt a sense of overpowering loss and of despair.

I took a few hearty puffs from the pink vape.

//

There are two types of people: those who look up

and those who look down.

You do find more money by taking my approach.

Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo lives in Philadelphia, where she curates the reading series Spit Poetry. She is the author of the poetry chapbooks Boring Eclipse (The Year, forthcoming) and DUH (Bullshit Lit, 2022), and her work appears or is forthcoming in The Iowa Review, Joyland, The Offing, Poetry Northwest, and The Cleveland Review of Books, among others. She can be followed @tall.spy on Instagram but she can never be caught.