Sometimes I worry that the sun is gone,
whipping my head towards the window

to check for light,

Fear like the smell of chopped garlic
that won’t leave the sliver of moon

underneath my nails.

In about two-billion years, it’ll start to
die, eat itself up from the inside out.

We all know that.

But I’m scared the billions will pass
when my back is turned, a simple fatal

oversight.

So I always have to check. I’m scared of
dying without changing my name to

what it should be

or before I can see an emperor penguin
dance for the first time or last before

their extinction.

At 23, time slips past me and takes
the sun with it. I wish the sun would make

more iron for my blood

Or at the very least take that shit back to
where it came from. My life is a blink but

when I’m high

It’s a millenia. Too many blinks and I’ll
never see the sun again.

Basil Payne (they/them) is a queer poet-artist living in Logan, Utah. Their work can be found in Sugar House Review, Sink Hollow, Oyster River Pages, Sheepshead Review, Progenitor, The Southern Quill, and occasionally Utah State University's Projects Gallery.