#poetry is underratted

[vox-ex]

The Accidental Poetry Of Physics

For @red-priestess-of-scully-romanov and the @argo-city-exchange 

Kara and Lena fall in love hard and fast but it takes them time and physics and poetry to realize it...What choices will it take?

---- ---- ---- ----

This is no ordinary story. In this story, the outcome depends on the decisions you make. Think carefully about your choices, as they will affect how the story ends.

You're quiet, and clumsy, and definitely a little hopeless, according to your sister.

You always wanted to be a writer, wanted to find words to explain the way the world feels.

You had to grow up too fast. Had to say goodbye to too many people too many times.

It should have made you stop believing in happy endings.

But still, you wanted to fall in love.

You fell in love at least once.

It was the kind of love that makes your stomach woozy and your head a little fuzzy. The kind of love that makes you say all the wrong things at all the wrong times, but she still smiles at you anyway.

Her name was Lena.

You see her every night in the campus library for weeks before you finally come up with a plan to talk to her.

It's 4 am, and it's just you and her and a couple of other wayward students. You buy her coffee and place it on the table when she finally steps away, leaving a note with a call number hastily scribbled underneath before you can talk yourself out of it.

Five minutes later, you watch as she peeks around the corner of the stacks, steps quiet, and hands wrapped protectively around the cup in her hands, her movements somewhere between cautious and curious. But when she finally sees you standing there, she smiles, hands relaxing to take a sip of her coffee as she tilts her head just a little.

"Slavic literature?"

You nod and pull a small blue book from the shelf and pass it to her, watching as she flips through the pages to get to the last clue...page 31.

Her smile widens when she sees the title. You smile back when she starts to read it aloud, and you get to hear for the first time the gentle lilting accent she can't keep hidden in the rhythm of the words.

The hour from night to day. The hour from side to side. The hour for those past thirty.

The hour swept clean to the crowing of cocks. The hour when earth betrays us. The hour when wind blows from extinguished stars. The hour of and-what-if-nothing-remains-after-us.

The hollow hour. Blank, empty. The very pit of all other hours.

No one feels good at four in the morning. If ants feel good at four in the morning –three cheers for the ants. And let five o'clock come if we're to go on living.

You learn a lot about Lena in that library.

You lean that she is quiet in her own way. That she grew up too fast too, faster maybe even than you.

You learn that she is getting her PhD, that she wants to be a scientist, that she wants to explain how the world works so we can be better at fixing it — better at helping people.

You share more poems with her, start to pair them with songs on homemade mixtapes.

She teaches you about the theories of the universe and shows you constellations on nights when it's dark enough.

You fall in love with her hard and fast — the way poets dare, and particles collide.

You want to think she loves you too.

But you never get the chance to know.

She leaves before you can tell her.

You give her one more tape.

Hope it can say the things you couldn't.

You don't know if she ever listens to it.

You don't suppose it matters.

But you think of it from time to time.

Until the titles of the poems started to fade.

Until the lyrics of the songs no longer got stuck on a loop in your head.

Until two days ago, when a letter slips free from the mail wedged between your arm and the takeout container in your hands as you fumble to get your keys into the lock.

You stare down at the slightly crumpled edges, at the grease smeared across the corner from the bag of Chinese food. It's been almost four years since you saw the handwriting on the envelope, the neat print strung together in elaborate equations rather than in simple letters of your name.

To pick up the letter, go to the next page...

Alex says she's a bad driver. And Kara wants to disagree with her. But she also concedes the possibility there might be a reason why none of her friends allow her to borrow their car to drive almost 3,000 miles on an impromptu road trip. So instead, it's by way of an overcrowded connecting flight in Chicago and one too many cups of lukewarm coffee that she finds herself first on the sidewalks of Metropolis and then greeted by a very nice, if not, slightly confused-looking man in the lobby of Lena's building. And Kara isn't sure whether it's that she's there to see Lena, or just her obvious out-of-placeness, which he finds more confounding.

It's only once she's on the way up to the apartment, that her palms start to feel sweaty, that she can feel her heart begin to flutter in her chest. Everything up until that moment hadn’t quite felt real. But now she’s starting to wonder how long she can reasonably wait in the hall while Lena thinks she's just gotten lost. Because she just needs a minute. Needs to convince herself that it's foolish to feel this way, foolish to feel so nervous over seeing her again. After all, they only knew each other for a year. It's silly. This whole thing is silly. She should just leave, go back down, go back to National City, and forget that Lena's letter ever came. So why then does it feel like it matters so much? And that's the question. That's always been the question.

The elevator stops. The doors slide open. But the hallway she had been expecting them to open onto, isn’t a hallway at all. Just a brightly lit apartment. And she has no plausible reason for turning back now. No way to even say she's knocked on the wrong door. And while she's busy trying to convince herself of just how silly this all is and how weird it is that anyone wouldn't even have a door to knock on, all of a sudden, Lena is just there. Four years and two cramped plane rides later, she's just there — all pressed white shirt and neat black slacks with an expensive-looking watch and heels that are too tall to possibly be comfortable. And for a moment, it's as if Kara can't figure out which Lena is real, the one in front of her or the one from her memories. So, she tries to picture her instead in a soft wool sweater with threadbare cuffs just long enough for her to tuck her hands into. She imagines them side by side, a glossy magazine cover next to a grainy polaroid taken in the low light of the library late at night. And she can't help but wonder briefly how different she must look too. How much she must have changed. She wonders what image of herself Lena held onto in her head, wonders if she held onto her at all.

"It's good to see you, Kara."

To step into the apartment, go to the next page...

Kara steps forward into the room and immediately can't decide what to do with her hands.

Do they hug?

They used to hug.

Do they shake hands?

Gosh, that'd be weird.

Not any weirder than just standing there staring at her, Kara.

She settles for smiling and raising her hand in an awkward little wave that might actually be the most awkward thing she's ever done.

"It's good to see you, too."

But then Lena smiles back at her, and it's the same smile still, eyes glittering with the same joy, and just a hint of mischievousness, and Kara is so wrapped up in the way it feels, so caught up in the way her heart thumps inside of her chest that she almost doesn't see what Lena's been holding in her hands.

It's still in the same case, with the same crack along one edge from where she dropped it onto the sidewalk of the departure terminal when she tried to pull it out of her bookbag.

"You still have it."

Kara stares at her with awe, but Lena just looks down at the tape deck in her hands, thumb running across the surface like a well-practiced pattern.

"I have something for you."

And she smiles again, but this time it's softer, quieter. The kind of smile they used to share when words felt too heavy, but you still needed to know everything was okay.

Kara follows her into another room, catching glimpses here and there of the person Lena is now before they're standing in front of a small bookshelf. Lena has to reach up just a little to get it, tipping the top of the spine out first and then carefully pulling it down. Kara watches as she traces a finger along the edge, counting the small tabs at the top to make sure they're all still there.

"I wanted you to see this," Lena tells her, pulling one of the tabs up a little higher than the others to mark the page and holds it out toward Kara.

To open the book, go to the next page...

Kara takes the book from Lena's hands, holding it carefully in her own as if she's afraid it might just fall apart.

And really, it's just a simple paperback book, the binding a little creased; it's clearly a copy that has been well-loved by someone, and its pale yellow and amber cover is a little faded from the sunlight of whatever bookshop window it may have spent its life in before finding a home here.

She finds the paper marking between the pages, and her fingers carefully slide between them, opening the book to the words that all at once become familiar again.

Lena touches the book gently, "Do you remember that night on the roof of the library?" she asks.

And, of course, she does. It was the night she decided she was going to tell Lena she loved her. It was the night she made the tape Lena was still holding in her hand. But she doesn't tell her that part.

"Of course."

She remembers sitting underneath the stars on a blanket stolen from Lena's roommate, Sam. She remembers Lena's hands tracing patterns in the sky as she talked about stories hidden in the stars, and the pull of black holes, and how every particle is connected. Kara remembers falling even more in love with her, falling even more in love with the idea of falling in love with her. Then she remembers going home and finding a poem by June Jordan:

There is no chance that we will fall apart There is no chance There are no parts.

She read it over and over, letting the sound of 'Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space' play through half-broken speakers until she had recorded them both as the last track on the last tape she would ever make for anyone.

Because then two days later, Lena's father died.

And three days after that, Kara held her hand at the funeral.

And by the following week, she and Lena were on opposites sides of the country.

She was supposed to give her the tape.

They were supposed to listen to it together.

She was supposed to tell her she loved her.

But instead, Kara pressed the tape into Lena's hands in a hasty airport goodbye, a number and an address etched on the plastic of the case in place of all the things she left unsaid between them. An unspoken promise to come if she ever needed her to replace the unspoken words she didn’t get to tell her.

And so that's what Kara supposes she is doing there with June Jordan's poem in hands again, sitting on a couch worth more than her rent — because a promise is a promise and, a little bit she thinks, because she still believes in the accidental poetry of physics.

There is no chance that we will fall apart There is no chance There are no parts.

To believe in the accidental poetry of physics, go to the next page...

Lena sits down next to her on the couch, close enough that if Kara moves just a little, their knees would be touching.

Kara tries to remember when the last time she felt so close to someone was.

Lena is the only one she can think of.

"I didn't know what to do."

Lena closes her eyes.

"I didn't know what to do. But I didn't want to leave; I need you to know that I didn't want to leave."

She shakes her head a little.

And all of a sudden, she looks four years younger, and your heart is beating four times faster.

"But I just got to in my own head. I mean, you know how dangerous of a place that can be?"

And Kara laughs a little at that.

"Yeah, it could be a little scary from time to time."

"The night of the funeral, I was just lying awake, and you were in next room, and I don't know if it was something about being back in my old bedroom, or, or if it was just everything else, but I started thinking about all the different things in my life that had happened to get to that moment and everything that was going to happen because of that moment. I started to think about the me whose father didn't die, who got to stay with you instead; I started to think about the me whose mother never died at all, who grew up far away from all of this."

Lena's hands gesture out to the sides and toward every expanse of white wall and white counter and lack of color that fills her apartment.

"Everything was going to change, and you were so kind and so good, and the world that I was about to be a part of was everything you weren't. And I thought that maybe, maybe in this version of the universe, I just didn't get to have you. But it was okay, it was okay because just like there was a universe out there where I got to grow up with my mother in Ireland, there was a universe where I got to stay with you on that roof, and I got to have you, and I got to love you. And somehow, I convinced myself that was enough."

Kara looks down at her hands, folds them in her lap to stop them from reaching out to Lena like she always used to.

It’s so much, there’s so much.

"So you think we just found each other in the wrong universe? That that there are other versions of you and other versions of me that got to fall in love.?"

Lena shrugs like she's asked herself this question so many times already that maybe it's stopped making sense.

"There had to be at least one, I mean, by the law of averages, there had to be at least one."

But Kara tries to make it make sense — to the past version of herself and this one.

"So we're not together because of the multiverse?"

"Yeah."

And when Kara looks at her, all she sees is how much weight that one word carries, how much Lena wants to believe that she is worthy of love, and yet accepts a universe in which that love always exists just out of reach.

"But then I found your tapes again."

And they both smile a little at that.

"I could never bring myself to listen to the last one. I think a part of me felt that it belonged to that other you and me. But then I finally got to the last track, and as soon as you read that poem, it felt so familiar. I listened to it over and over, trying to place it. And then I remembered. "

Lena points at the book of poems still in Kara's hands.

"The first night I was alone, and I-I missed you so much, I missed you, and instead of calling you, I found the first bookshop I could and wandered right into the poetry section and bought that book."

Lena traces her finger over the words of the first line.

There is no chance that we will fall apart

"And maybe it's a coincidence, or maybe its two particles shouting at each other through space, but I let myself believe that maybe those words belonged to us the whole time. That maybe the universe we fall in love in can be this one after all."

She pauses, takes a deep breath, tries to push down all the emotions rushing forward.

"And I can't help but think that I've realized this all too late. That I'm still wrong. But you're here, and I figured if you came, then at least, that meant there was still a chance I wasn't too late."

To fall in love in this universe, go to the next page...

Kara realizes she hasn't said anything. But in her defense, Lena has never rambled like that before, not when she was sleep deprived from too much studying, not even when she tried to drink her sister under the table for some reason. Kara was the rambler. The one who thought that maybe if she just spoke fast enough, it could make the world feel like it stopped spinning for just a second. But now, Kara begs for the world to do anything but a standstill.

So she does the only she can think of to force it into motion.

She makes a choice.

She leans in.

"It's not too late"

And when Lena finally kisses her, with one hand pressed against her jaw and the other drawing her in even closer, every touch feels somehow like a memory, like it's something they've done before. And maybe that means Lena was right, maybe there's another universe where they kissed after that night on the roof, maybe that means that this moment too will remain, a memory of human love stretching through time and space to be carried on the backs of particles unbound by the limits of human nature — she can't imagine anything more poetic than that.

#supercorp #supergirl #argo city exchange #poetry is underratted #physics is hard #choose you own adventure style #technically a college AU #a freak snow storm and cancelled flight tried to derail this story #thank you for your patience #Trying new things #hope you like it

[acemapleeh]

2, 4, 9, 11, 12 for HWS Canada? Your fics are so underratted!

Thank you, that’s sweet of you <3

Link to the ask game here

2. What is their favorite piece of technology?

Honestly, when you live for so many centuries, what do you pick? Space heaters are definitely on the top of the list, instant coffee and electric kettles for an easy, hot drink in the morning, solar panels to heat up isolated ice fishing shacks. It’s all the little things that have added up that’s made life so much easier and warmer. Telephones took a while to get used to, but having his family and friends so easily available is both a blessing and curse. He’s not afraid to shut off his phone and fuck off for a few weeks, but given the fact the people who understand his existence most are typically hundreds of miles away, this makes reaching out for reassurance for his loneliness easier.

4. Was there anything their parents pushed them to do? (e.g. sports, theatre, band)

Matthew had the absolute joy and privilege of having to be raised under Arthur's roof for the majority of the 19th century. He had already mastered his reading, writing, and arithmetic, so now what was left to teach was how to be a proper English gentleman of society. He didn't need to be a scholar and like hell was he going to be sent to Public School or university. Matthew's education focused heavily focused on sportsmanship, etiquette, leadership, and even confidence, so he would have all of the necessary skills to eventually be a legitimate member of society as well as a proper nation (someday). His governess taught him the waltz, conducting himself at dinner parties, poetry, art, music, languages (such as Latin and Greek), and various other subjects (astronomy, history, classical text, geography, etc.). He was expected to be well-rounded.

Arthur took charge of teaching him hands-on, practical skills. Matthew enjoyed learning to shoot long-range, how to sail on Ullswater Lake, and even military strategy was a useful skill. He could care less about playing the violin or the harpsichord, he still doesn't understand how cricket works, and though he isn't terrible on horseback, the English sidestep and other equine traditions boggle his mind. Also, he will appreciate the works of Shakespeare, but please, he's retched on stage.

9. What chronic illnesses does your muse have if any?

Chronic depression, anxiety, vitamin D deficiency, and hockey ankles.

On a serious note, I think I'll answer the other part of this in the next question as they go hand in hand.

11. Does your muse wear glasses/contacts?

He must absolutely wear glasses. I, like many, say that this all started in World War 1 with the Second Battle of Ypres where the Germans first utilized poison gas. Matthew would wake several days later after his death at this battle, screaming in confusion and absolute agony. His wails only stop when his throat no longer lets him, coughing and spitting blood as his chest feels as though it's on fire. He pauses when a hand holds his and he could hear cries that were not his own. Matthew's death was not a kind one. His eyes were bandaged and sewn shut in order to heal properly. For days the world was darkness, he lay only in content because of the constant morphine being put in his veins. He feels guilty as he's told his sight will soon return, that he was healing well. Too many of his men, some not even old enough to even lie about being a man, were dead.

He could hardly recognize his reflection when he finally has the chance. His eyes aren't focusing, he scolds himself. There were still bandages, his skin blistered and burned from his face to his hands. Deep breaths hurt, sitting up hurts but it won't be until autumn evenings will the true damage his lungs received will come to light. He pants while continuing to march forward, clouds of cold breath painful, he places a hand against a tree, winded.

Things get better with time but his sight is never what it used to be, glasses a must whenever he leaves the house. His lungs are irritated in the cold. He hates that those deep breaths of frigid air that should bring him nothing but comfort now trigger coughing fits and moments of weakness.

12. What are some warning signs that your muse is getting depressed?

It's something that's definitely easier to notice in modern times. Having a case of the morbs back in the day was him wallowing in the halls and staying in bed past ten in the morning like a dysfunctional member of society. He would lounge in the fake graveyard his father staged, reading morbid books and poems while hoping the ground would swallow him whole. He was very quiet about his depressive episodes for a very long time. It was normal, everyone surely had to have felt the same way he did from time to time. Desperately needing a laudanum and opium nap every other day was normal, right? He had yet to realize just how deep his exhaustion was running from upkeeping appearances. 

These days it all starts showing by how long it's been since he's looked at his messages. He won’t leave anyone on read, just scrolls to see the notification to make sure it’s nothing urgent, then promptly ignores it. A few days is usually okay, he might have the honest reason of work piling up or he was camping somewhere with no reception. Weeks to a month go by without one call or message to Alfred, there’s a problem. Matthew’s way of coping is self-isolation. His family doesn’t respect him, his friends hate him, everyone only pretends to mildly tolerate him- oh! Alfred texted him to go out for coffee... maybe it’d be best if got out of the house. 

If it’s not isolation, it’s his sleeping habits. Are you sleeping too much or too little? Yes. He goes back and forth of sleeping for twelve hours or more a day to staring at his ceiling thinking it’d be easier to have a quick death. He’s lethargic, you have a conversation with him and he spaces out. A quick apology that he’s just tired and has a headache. He takes another painkiller because his shoulders and back were killing him on top of it.

Really, just check up on him once in a while because depression comes from nowhere and sticks like a tough stain. Pick him up, brush him off, and let him know you remember him and don’t hate him, then put him to bed and throw a forty pound blanket on him for good measure.

#hws canada #matthew williams #dumb little headcanons #ask box #man i wrote a wee bit more than planned sorry sorry