I say when we play Crash Bandicoot. The fruit slipped in between two impossible jumps
And how many things do we do anyways no matter the cost-- remember that the search for the stars sent a dog to space, with no intent on bringing her home
How the shuttle that held her body disintegrated as it re-entered the Earth’s orbit? How the dust of Laika must have fallen into the ocean
and she might still be in the rain that falls on cities, helps rivers to rage, and peach trees to grow
And that cost was so high, so easy to not have done, the information not enough for a life That wasn’t a risk, but a negotiation of what a soul might cost
But this is about risk
This jump is a risk saying I love you is a risk like the stars are a risk like anything is a risk when it feels far away
But, once I had a peach, when I was hot and thirsty, from a tree bent back with age, and it was so sweet so full of sun that it made me imagine myself a life I’d want to keep making And that, too, is a kind of impossible jump
Chloe N. Clark is the author of Collective Gravities, Your Strange Fortune, Under My Tongue, The Science of Unvanishing Objects, and the forthcoming Escaping the Body. She is co-EIC of Cotton Xenomorph and can be found on Twitter @PintsNCupcakes.