during a lecture justwrite

"There's nothing wrong." You tell me that gender is a universe and all of us are stars. I think about the space in between. I think about watercolor soaking into paper, not finding any edges until the white ends and the table begins. I pluck flowers from the Earth, gather them in bouquets and watch you stare at them during dinner, the wide, empty throats of daffodils gaping, open, like silent screams or paused laughter or hunger, hunger, their spines thin, fragile, green, snapping between my fingers like slivers of almonds. sometimes the world is a walnut, and we haven't even cracked the shell. Sometimes the world is a watermelon split through the rind, our feet up to the ankles in juices, your mouth watering and mine, full of sky, brimming over with watercolor. You tell me we are stars in the universe. I stare at the empty table, my eyes blank, my eyelids transparent, waiting. Your eyes sparkle. I wonder what's in them. They point skyward, searching for the moon.