By Eva Dias Costa in Jung at Heart — 24 Jul 2025

Calibrating/Leaping

We were both born into wallpaper
that refused to repeat.

He: briefly the brightest thing in the room –
not meant to last the evening.

She: kept an alembic for grief,
distilled the air for bitterness,
bottled the residue,
for special occasions.

At night, I followed the maps drawn in moth dust.
You charted the ceiling cracks
for signs of collapse.

I mistook lullabies for launch codes.
You mistrusted songs
that didn’t come with schematics.

I stopped asking why the wind turned.
Let the thread tangle.
Stood still long enough to see
there was no straight line out.

You –
trained in the language of systems –
pressed for symmetry,
wanted the pattern to hold.

Still,
we breathed the same asbestos truth:
that love arrives dressed as weather,
and often leaves the windows open.

You built equations
to keep the flood at bay.
I let it in,
called it a nocturne played in reverse,
and drowned once or twice,
for good measure.

You see –
the wound was a house with slanted floors.
I danced downhill.
You tried to level the furniture.

We are both jarred.
Only, I admit it in public.

We each carry a crystal ball now –
yours wrapped in caution,
mine already humming.

I listen for music.
You scan for fault lines.

You want yours
to make no sound when it falls,
to trace the hush
as it arranges itself.

I want mine
to sing as it shatters,
to read
what the glass chooses to write.

Neither of us gets to choose.

[Here is the part where something should resolve.]
It doesn’t.

There’s no map for this.
Only floors.
And

$$
R_{\mu \nu} - \frac{1}{2} R g_{\mu \nu} + \Lambda g_{\mu \nu} = \frac{8\pi G}{c^4} T_{\mu \nu}
$$