It tugs, silent, empty
Gravitational
They call it action at a distance
I don’t have to touch it
Don’t have to see it
For it to exert power over me
It pulls, we dance around the barycenter
It’s a matter of physics, not deliberation
It pulls, burrowing into me, preparing for gestation
Like mosquito larvae squirming to the surface
Pupating, emerging, spreading its wings
And landing on flesh coursing with life
The mouthparts are desperate and greedy
It pulls, taking from me something replaceable but still mourned
Just another breath to take,
a pressure gradient to create,
a shifting of the diaphragm
It pulls, and I am alive
Oxygen flows, the atoms inside me rage against entropy
Doomed to lose but trying anyway
Not that they have a say in the matter
It pulls
It’s a matter of physics
Each step predicted by the one preceding it
Maybe it’s irrelevant
That I’m like this, I mean
Maybe it’s not me
Maybe it’s not a choice
It pulls