The Japanese do not take words of praise

for fear of being arrogant:

to receive a compliment

and say “Thank you”

is to admit you are better

than the person applauding you.

But I feel it:

the black hole in my chest—

a collapsed star

that pulls my shoulders,

chin, and hands in on themselves.

My breath becomes the Event

Horizon and suddenly I am

Stephen Hawking.

Words go in, but nothing,

ever, ever comes out.

Throughout the vastness of Spacetime,

stars shine much brighter

than the lonely cauldron

of Einstein’s Relative Proportions—

something about quantum mechanics

blah, blah, blah:

nothing wants to be around

a black hole.

I want there to be “light holes”

that spew out garbage

from other universes:

letters of dead languages

swirl and singe the galaxy

like a scene from a Kubrick film.

They bounce off my bony shoulder,

and shatter

like this morning’s cornflakes;

smiley faces blend with the skies

of neon nebulas;

gravity works its magic

and slings light at the infinite.

We are the forces

that holds the Higgs Boson together,

just as light moves when you change positions,

so too does a snowflake melt differently

when you give it compliments.

I am a unique and beautiful snowflake,

just like everybody else.

I melt differently because words

are the stuff

that stars are made of.