On a headline beginning
“RFK Jr. bombarded Bill Nye with autism texts”
One, I’ve also tried and failed to express something
deeply internal. Two, I’ve heard what Bill said about you,
but about myself: “And he started again,
so I cut him off.” And three, I am also overtaken
by flights of fantasy when I hear the word mercury. Planetary alignments,
strange coincidences. I do love a multi-meaning word, a mercurial word.
In conspiracy, for example, it represents death, impurity,
the little silver theodicy of evil in the vaccine.
And in astrology, it is an immutable personality. I don’t
care for that, but perhaps you appreciate it more than I do.
But in alchemy,
the study of everything being the same
and the futile quest to show it to the world? I am
transfixed by the word mercury just like you. How the
tender slivers slink up my nervous system like bugs:
This substance contains mercury. It has
life-altering transformative power.
and that is three similarities between us,
as kindly as I can put them. I am not looking
for feedback regarding empathy at this time.
Hy Libre is a poetess, game designer, and trans gal born in Tucson. She’s currently working on a thesis on the poetics of distortion, and she’s interested in rhetoric, logic, sound, play, time, and the failure of empathy. Find her at lightsforcats.com.
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