How far Pluto is from the Sun by Roy Duffield (Lucent Dreaming Issue 8)

How far you are
From the Sun
Pre-1931
They’re completely unaware
They don’t even know you’re there
As you set out
On your longest journey yet
We’ll never be this close again
Cut off
Behind a wall
Of black-out paint
Three billion miles thick
And counting…
And just out of reach
Frozen through
−218 degrees
And counting…
Of insufficient mass
And far too far
From anything else
(Four billion miles now
And still counting…)
For anything else
To be moved by
Or even feel
The pull of your gravity
As you fall away
Exponentially
Faster
Faster
Than this message could ever follow

Lost
In silence
(Zero decibels
But now who’s counting?)
They taught us in Science
To know
But never to understand.

Roy Duffield was honoured to be picked to perform at last year’s Beat Poetry Festival in Barcelona. He has a first-class degree in creative writing from Bath Spa University and his work has recently appeared (or soon will) in The Trouvaille Review, The Medley, Anti-Heroin Chic, Night Bus to Speakers’ Corner, Half-baked, The Dawntreader and Jalada Africa. He has travelled over 100 countries and sometimes posts his micropoetry on Instagram.
@DrinkTraveller | @drinking_traveller

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Lucent Dreaming is an independent creative writing magazine publishing beautiful, imaginative and surreal short stories, poetry and artwork from emerging authors and artists worldwide. Our aim is to encourage creativity and to help writers reach publication! Subscribe to Lucent Dreaming now, support us on Patreon and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.