Pluto

I was the ninth picturesque in the sky,
bright with the color of Thaipusam
during an aura-encapsulated full moon,
orbiting cheek-to-cheek with the rest.
You demoted me to dwarf,
once ninth, now Snow White plus seven.
The large, pale white heart on my surface
has crumbled into ten-billion stars,
hovering in the Milky Way—
watered down ice, bleeding from
the scarps and troughs of my flesh
twisted from the inside out,
strung together like black licorice.
Sapphire veins of yellow toggled
to orange like deep red wine, splashing,
flipping me one-hundred-and-eighty
degrees into the dark, whale depth.
My core is solid rock
but my bones cringe in methane
like oil-soaked rags. I am flammable,
internally feasted on, a feeling,
a speckled, unbalanced gumball
worth twenty-five cents, implanted
in a fractured, vibrant line, high and low
of a child’s mouth where I align
with eight other gumball-shaped teeth.
Perihelion’s warmth, slowly
dwindling into goosebumps
on the arm of this galaxy,
popping like pink Dubble Bubble.
I am chewed up and spit out,
mashed to the bottom of
a dirty, white sneaker and minced
across a place like 8 Mile Road,
as if gravity in the Milky Way
actually existed.