"Baby Galaxy" by Emanuela Iorga
Attenuation by Quinn Forlini
I face the quiet
of you
not calling. January,
and I keep the lights on
low. In the dimmest
corner of night,
it’s just me and you
not talking. My head
stacked with empty
ice cube trays, craters
where I used to hold
the frozen vapors
of your voice, where
I sometimes
catch some thought
of you still burrowing.
These hollows
make me think back
to the neuroscience
class I took years ago,
that man at the front
of the room who said
he didn’t give a tiny
rat’s ass if we ever
showed up. Every
electrical impulse firing
along my axons went
into getting an A. I did
the same in high school
biology, chemistry,
physics: infinite hours
smoldered in the heat
of a Bunsen burner,
just to prove myself
to science teachers,
like I needed them
to know I could play
in their hypotheses
and control groups,
that I could
choose microscope
and C. elegan, and
didn’t. I still remember
all the body systems
from when I was fourteen
and wanted my body
to die. Test me.
Skeletal, lymphatic,
endocrine, nervous.
I didn’t die. I got
another A. I want you
to give me a report
card now. I want
to crystallize us,
so if I turn back
some night and try
to listen, all
that’s left of everything
we ever said
is a single letter.
of you
not calling. January,
and I keep the lights on
low. In the dimmest
corner of night,
it’s just me and you
not talking. My head
stacked with empty
ice cube trays, craters
where I used to hold
the frozen vapors
of your voice, where
I sometimes
catch some thought
of you still burrowing.
These hollows
make me think back
to the neuroscience
class I took years ago,
that man at the front
of the room who said
he didn’t give a tiny
rat’s ass if we ever
showed up. Every
electrical impulse firing
along my axons went
into getting an A. I did
the same in high school
biology, chemistry,
physics: infinite hours
smoldered in the heat
of a Bunsen burner,
just to prove myself
to science teachers,
like I needed them
to know I could play
in their hypotheses
and control groups,
that I could
choose microscope
and C. elegan, and
didn’t. I still remember
all the body systems
from when I was fourteen
and wanted my body
to die. Test me.
Skeletal, lymphatic,
endocrine, nervous.
I didn’t die. I got
another A. I want you
to give me a report
card now. I want
to crystallize us,
so if I turn back
some night and try
to listen, all
that’s left of everything
we ever said
is a single letter.
Quinn Forlini (she/her) has writing published or forthcoming in Catapult, X-R-A-Y, Jellyfish Review, Longleaf Review, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from the University of Virginia and lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You can find her on Twitter @quinnforlini.
Emanuela Iorga is a filmmaker, artist, and screenwriter, who lives in Chisinau, Moldova. Art represents for her a recently rediscovered passion, following a series of world and inner changes. Her work can be found at https://manolcaincosmos.wordpress.com/270-2/
