Science recognizes one hundred and eighteen elements:

hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon,

and so on and so forth

all the way down

to livermorium, tennessine, oganesson.

I find it much less daunting

to stick to the original four—

earth, air, fire, water—

The universe is already so vast

endless

boundless

why do we feel the need to define every

little

thing?



On bad days, I pretend that I grew out of the ground.

I root myself into the earth

with my big square hands

and my strong round feet

and hold on with my teeth and my nails

like a dandelion with no head,

insistent upon growing here

right

here

in

this

spot.



On good days, I pretend that I am made out of a cloud.

I package myself up in silks

and point my toes

and paint my face in my own mockery,

and float down the sidewalk

on high-heeled skis

glowing pink and yellow

strawberry lemon.



On very bad days,

I remind myself over and over and over and over

that I am made out of fire

a rose out of my own ashes.

On very good days,

I pretend that I am made out of water

poured momentarily into a vessel

frozen into one shape

but only for right now—

tomorrow I can 

and will

be something entirely different.



On days that are not good

but that are also not that bad

I am made out of some elusive fifth element

some impossible Option C

that is just fluid enough to know that it wants to escape 

out of every pore.

On those days, I am made out of stardust.



(Yes, I know, we are all made out of stardust all the time,

which also says something about what I am 

all the time

but you can’t always feel it, you know?)

Some days, I can feel it.

Some days, I feel it filling me

prickling at the edges of my skin

fizzling behind my eyes

and I guess there’s a spectrum there

between stardust and just

dust—

but even dust is never just dust.

Dust is, itself, somewhere between the states of matter;

it’s made of solids

but moves like a liquid:

astronomers draw no line between gas and dust.



Those same astronomers say that stardust—

like the physical dust that eventually forms stars,

cosmic dust—

tastes like raspberries

and smells like rum,

and maybe that’s just what I’m made out of some days,

a nebulous cloud of raspberries and rum

and dust.



Elementally 

fundamentally

inevitable

unexplainable

unlikely

inexorable.