Jupiter
Carrie Rudzinski

It’s somewhere between three am and dares big enough to throw boys off the roofs of
—–buildings
and Jupiter spins mumbled words in my direction that sound an awful like:
—–- you’re a terrible soul sometimes -
We’re hunched spines smashed between tiled floor and
phone calls we don’t talk about anymore
echos of fist fights in our voices
pretending we don’t hold onto each other in the dark
and he starts praying through his teeth.
It starts:
in the name of the Father
humming me to sleep
a base beat
asking me if I exist
to remind him
that love is this really scary concept
that you can only hurt other people with.
And I start humming along
in the name of the Father
I can’t help but think
maybe love is just muscle memory:
a body next to a body
you just react
how you learned the first time
the way you felt laying next to a pair of lungs,
As if stars were birthdays
and years were the silence experienced in the embrace of the person you currently miss
—–the most.
Jupiter starts making promises that he’ll LIVE too hard
for either of us to exist separately tomorrow
so I swallow the concept of time
sink it to the bottom of a fish graveyard
hand made beneath the ribcage of my bedroom window
a basin of bad dreams
and hope to the clock makers of the Universe
he forgets that we agreed
to name our first son Adam.
But Jupiter’s not always breathing
just spinning
letters into words
about the night we met
two souls heavy eyed into each other’s clavicles
right where the bone dips and lifts
our spines wrapped around the lost luggage counter
our suitcases falling in love.
There’s a reason they pull your wisdom teeth out
when you’re too young to believe
trying to reverse what the apple taught Eve to see.
Mark each tumor with red tape
We rip scabs
to be forgotten
and forget
so we can wake up with bruises
and not remember what we broke ourselves for
Floorboards never sounded so safe
until Jupiter said
Marry me
and I’ll hold you in this place where all the rings
space ships and satellites spend their years making
can be ours.
We started making addiction
strong as a verb reserved only for dragonflies
I said LOVE ME BAREFOOT WHALE RIDER
and we navigated the sea
as if the ocean was a post office for battle ships and bottled hearts
and Jupiter was born its mailman.
Every letter hand written in the waves
asked for the same thing:
a home built on more than two wide hearts singing names and darts.
Our marriage vows echoed
the starfish song of chance,
A package of lies self addressed and left on the front porch
of dictionaries
Jupiter and I planted trees to keep the world alive.
And somewhere between
dragonflies
and
the pull of the morning tide
Jupiter and I ended up on the kitchen floor
underneath that hole in the attic ceiling
and Jupiter
is praying through his teeth.
His chants click and drop
as childlike hums
and he tells me
I’ve only known addiction to people-
and he’s only ever loved change-
and if he were to capsulate me inside of a single word
I would sound a whole lot like:

ash @ 7:18 AM