We Are the Solar System

[sarattackz]

We are nothing more than heavenly bodies,
planets circling ‘round
a heavier force than our own flesh could muster.
And we contend with the fact that we are far
apart; set just close enough
to tease and taunt and rip at each other's
seams with our own gravity -
we never come closer than just enough to see,
wary of
the danger of feeling.

And perhaps the distance is just what we need.
Maybe the closer we get the farther we feel,
and we need to know each other like the stars
know a fall, like the sun knows how to
not incinerate us all.
(It’s instinctual and intimate, what they understand.)

We all know it;
for us to collide would be a disaster without disguise;
we can not predict how the humans would react,
if our planetary selves were to spin out of their own ellipse
and, in a hailstorm of rocks and red and flames, into a neighbors’.
For they understand purely gravity; not the pull of something more,
or the experience of destroying yourself just
for the thrill of touch.