You cannot be found in nature, only in a laboratory. Element 113. Has anyone ever told you that you are extremely radioactive and so very synthetic? (I'm flirting.) I like you best short-lived, your most stable isotope with a half-life of 20 seconds. (Still flirting.)
This is how I looked you up. This is how I found you out. It feels as though you will never truly exist. Here and gone. Here and gone. Are those precious moments meaningful to you? Do you make time to cherish them? You might have time to notice the variegated greens, the cycles of azaleas blooming and drying.
A poem, written by a child who never thought of you until she grew up, sat pressing in an old family dictionary. Words preserved words. Letters embraced letters. There was a little something about leaves in Spring and what you might wonder about them.
Ni-ni (I hope it's okay if I call you that), do you know what you are?
You weren’t born, yet. You hadn’t been considered.
(Author's note: This is a rewrite of a poem I wrote back in 2014)
💜