modesty is essential for stargazing.

here is a solemn dedication

to all the professors who said

my papers were built on straw men.

they were.

they were about alice. they were

about wendy. they were about me.

they were not about cognitive constraint

and i had not tried to constrain them,

and they had not tried to contain me.

so here’s to surviving, to messy or minor,

here’s to laughing through trials for justice.

here’s to living through all the ends dying.

we’re wendy and we can’t fly but we can wake up.

there are warm days. there are warm boots.

and in the threat of 230 years of nuclear fallout

we should survive all the things we can.