Carbon And Silver (Slam Poetry) Poem by Maya Hanson

I'm carbon and you're silver.
You'd think we had so many differences
but really we're just on opposite sides of the same chart
that some scientist made a million years ago
and we're really not that different at all.

Sometimes we occupy the same spaces
Sometimes we build the same world
Sometimes we breathe the same air
Sometimes we feel like we're not enough
Sometimes we push away those well-meaning electrons that come near us when we're crying
Sometimes we fly high enough it feels like we could reach out and touch the sun
Sometimes we feel like our sentences are fireworks that could either end in a standing ovation or catastrophe.

Maybe in an alternate universe
we're one and the same
or locked like pen and paper on your bedside table
maybe we're still in the same time zone.

Sometimes I sit and try to contemplate
life
or oranges
or why I didn't wake up to my alarm this morning
or time zones
or the two minutes I held you before you disappeared where I was so peaceful
how can carbon be peaceful
how can carbon soften silver
all I wanted was to break down your walls and ride sandpaper over your corners
how can silver vanish
how am I thinking about my own existence
but then I realize I'm held up by atoms that can't be seen with the naked eye, and a bouquet of atoms shouldn't be thinking that metaphysically.

For so long I wished I could tame your sharp edges,
I wished I could smooth your rough surface until all you were was shine and perfect and you won't fail and hey pretty little girl, tell us what you think and you made it and beautiful
and still
you leave me in the dust that falls off your boots on the way to everywhere
you swallow me every time you nourish your beautiful frame
you leave me behind every time you open your mouth

If I'm carbon and you're silver
we spend our entire lives in the same place
but we only sometimes collide.

And how is it that some days I make diamonds and other days I make coal
and you just keep being silver and linking people together
and making even the steepest slope look beautiful
and eagles pick little slivers of you up from the ground to line their nests
and unknowingly they leave me broken down and torn apart in the soil.

There are things I wish I knew
But I can't seek out the mines that might hold you
when everything I've built is made of molecules.