Astronaught
I learned the difference between an astronaught [a. s. t. r. o. n. a. u. g. h. t]
and an astronaut [a. s. t. r. o. n. a. u. t] during the fifth grade spelling bee.
Well. They didn’t teach it to me in school.
But I think in space school they say something like “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”
But they never teach you how to aim or just how far the stars are from the moon
They don’t teach you that the exuberance of being in the stratosphere
doesn’t make your lungs forget the taste of oxygen
And they certainly don’t teach you that your heart is
a suspension bridge and no matter how well engineered, it always bows to the wind
Because they don’t teach you to take risks like they used to
They don’t teach you that no matter where you are,
your molecules continue to bounce back and forth,
faithfully keeping the rhythm of the world
Because once you’re up in space,
they teach you to neglect the laws of physics
and that although inertia keeps you going,
it’s much easier to fall out of orbit than you think
And once you escape centripetal force well you can always try again but
they don’t teach you to kick out furiously against gravity
Because they don’t teach you take risks like they used to
They don’t teach you that failure leaves two trails
One of remorse… and one of relief
Because sometimes we’re afraid to succeed
And astronauts know that but astronaughts?
Not so much.
They teach you that once you’re in space
you’ll forget about politics and instead
learn how to balance Africa on your fingertip
or how to reach down and pluck the Aurora Borealis
out of the sky and weave its colors into the currents
But they don’t teach you to take risks like they used to
An astronaught [a. s. t. r. o. n. a. u. g. h. t.] ought to know what astronauts know
They ought to be taught that neither the destination
nor the journey matters so much as the person who’s taking it
They ought to be taught that hydrogen peroxide is just a string of chemicals
and what really propels that sleek aerodynamic dream