Stars, not Constellations by Zeke Roth-Reynolds
We were sitting at a table on Rue de Passy. You gave me pearls. You handed me a box, a box that could have only come out of a jewelry store.“ Here. I got you pearls.”“ No you didn’ t,” I said. You weren’ t a jewelry kind of guy. I opened the box. I dumped them out into my hand and they loosely rolled over one another. One dropped and bounced away into the street, and I watched it roll into a storm drain. They were pearls— just pearls.“ What in the hell am I supposed to do with these?” I laughed.“ They’ re not on a string?”“ They’ d look great in a fish tank,” you replied, meeting my gaze.“ I suppose there’ s some kind of poetic significance to this?” You smiled.“ Go ahead, lay it on me, Shakespeare.” You thought.“ I wanted to give you the stars, not a constellation.”“ You’ re going to have to help me out, Romeo. I don’ t get it.” You leaned forward, closed your eyes, and tapped your foot. Like you always did when you were searching for words.“ You know how when anyone stargazes they immediately start hunting out constellations?” you said, opening your eyes to look at me.“ Sure.”“ I think it’ s a hell of a lot prettier when we just look at the stars. You know, as just stars— when we don’ t impose anything upon them.” You stopped. I had to coax the rest out of you:“ Is that it? You look like you’ ve got more.” You smiled and shook your head. But continued after a second’ s silence:“ We’ re too damn busy injecting meaning into things, you know? A pearl necklace means too much, and how ugly is that? A necklace is like writing, some uninspired sentence lovers have repeated a thousand times— I wanted the pearls to be what bugs write under the tree bark, like bird tracks in the sand— that kind of writing … We’ re always bringing things together so that they’ re complete, and organizing shit so that it makes sense. I think they’ re more beautiful as stars, not constellations …” I waited to make sure you were done. You looked at me and shrugged.“ Very poetic,” I said.“ Even for you.” And then we kissed.“ Don’ t worry about what to do with the pearls, though. They’ re not real.” cool rock photo by laura by Laura Rethmann