Little Deaths
When you burst through the body’s confines
in the grip of joy,
think of the black hole's
birth cry:
an explosion so profound
presence turns
into absence.
Creation is a weapon:
one part blossoms,
one part collapses.
When your skin lights up
where fingertips trace
the freckled constellations,
when heat that pumps your heart
roils through every limb,
and you know you will die
of pleasure, remember
how you are wrong: what remains
condenses into tangible darkness,
distorts space and time around it,
the way a deep wound
gains its own pulse, its own center
of gravity,
rewrites consciousness
to a single, infinite
point of pain.
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Laura Passin is a writer, scholar, and feminist at large. She earned her PhD in English Literature at Northwestern and her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Oregon. Her writing has appeared in a wide range of publications, including Prairie Schooner, Adrienne: A Poetry Journal of Queer Women, The Toast, Rolling Stone, Electric Literature, and Best New Poets 2013. Laura lives in Denver with too many pets.