Growing Up
At first, we were microscopic, brothers throwing punches with fists
that neither of us could feel, and we swam through the primordial soup
until we grew a little bigger, evolving like the pink mammals who crawled
up from the crucible, and we were as small as household pets, still biting
with gnarled teeth and trying to edge a nail into the other’s throat, and we grew
even more until we stood like adults, kicking and screaming into the evening
sun, teeth meeting flesh, growling into skin, and by then
we realized that our only language was violence, and we tried to talk it out
with more sharp edges and metal points, and soon we were so large and bloody
that we towered over buildings, falling backward through their walls, spilling
into the world and coating it with ourselves, metal and wood alike
splintering into dust beneath our large and calloused feet, and still,
we kept growing, until our heads periscoped out of the atmosphere,
and then our chests, our belts, our legs, until
the Earth’s gravity gave us up, and we started floating through space,
cursing and throwing elbows, desperate for one last jab until the vacuum
separated us and we drifted away from each other, flailing in the expanse,
glaring at each other and our bodies moved further and further away
until
we were both
alone.
