The Fractured Birth Of That Which Skies Cannot Hold Poem by Avery Koplin

It cracks, it rips, and I—no, not I, something else—
tears through the breath of it, like the stars,
or what was meant to be stars, but they're, not,
they're stretching, filling the gaps with nothing I can name,
and what are we but the blur between, slipping, between what was and what's not yet?
The moon? The moon? Not the moon.
The air has fingers, and I think I think I feel them, but no, that's not it,
there's a thud, a crack, and the sound isn't sound,
it's the space that runs too thick,
crawling between the holes in my skin, no, no, not my skin, but it's there, isn't it?
Somewhere.
Everything spins too fast, not fast enough, slow down!
It's not the spinning that's wrong, it's the air, the smell,
the way it tastes like rotten milk in a glass that has no edges, no glass, no... NO!
Who are we to name any of it?
To clutch the edge of a burning star and shout out,
shout out until the sound bites back?

The planet spins in a way that shouldn't be,
and I—watching, I think, but am I?
Or am I just a smear on the edge of a thought,
watching the dust,
it's spinning the wrong way, but it feels right,
feels more like it's pulling me into its arms, arms made of ancient-Egyptian-jagged gaps—
no—nothing is touching anything, nothing is anywhere,
there's a hole where a hole should be, but there's no hole,
there's only shapes falling, breaking, pieces peeling off the sky,
and the air—NO!
What is the sky but a sick thing full of colors that shouldn't be here—
blue, I think, but I'm not sure, because it's leaking, no, it's leaking itself, spilling and re-spilling,
and I can't hold it, but I never could, could I?
I think I remember a sound, or was it a thing? (It doesn't matter)
It's lost. Lost!
The stars are still breaking, folding over each other like pages that never end—
I'm not sure where the words begin, not sure when the breath stopped, but I'm still—
are we still? Still in this, this! THIS!
And it's slipping through the holes, through the edges where nothing touches—
but there's something more than nothing.
There's a thing.
And I'm reaching, but it doesn't reach back.
Doesn't— doesn't.