Every name I pull out of my hair is a soft / blow to the spine, decibels for Newtons.

Poetry by Hannah Seo

In the winter of my nineteenth year I learned cycles
               are not created equal (the snake keeps its head as the tail 
goes down). Every name I pull out of my hair is a soft 
      blow to the spine, decibels for Newtons. 

The probability of two stars colliding is approximately one in 250 
              quadrillion, about 1000 times 
less likely than being hit by lightning thrice. In 250 quadrillion realities, 

just one contains the perfect cataclysm 
(not to be confused with catechism [when I lie prone and 
open to the strike]). Everything else I can survive.

I love the silence of dawn more than the 
               silence of hallways – in this Escherine world, 
what could I know of ego? A word, after all, is a measurement. 
                             The hard and soft of knowing, the hard and soft of tongues.

Hannah Seo is a Korean-Canadian young emerging writer and student of Journalism at New York University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Paragon Press, Open Minds Quarterly, and The Jellyfish Review, among others. Find Hannah at @hannahjuststop on all social media platforms.