I Want To Be Goop

By Mia Huerta

I want to be a pile of goop.

I want to be a non-Newtonian fluid

I want to be viscoelastic so that you can mold me

This way and that

I want to fit in every container.

And you may ask, “My dear, wouldn’t a Newtonian liquid suffice?”

And to that I say, “Bah! Dear friend, if I were Newtonian

And you poured me onto the counter

I would spread out and expand and coalesce and slide down in thin droplets.

That simply will not do.

The process is both too lovely and too transient.

When you pour me, I want to make a pathetic little splat,

Resting there in a useless and utterly charming lump.”

Goop is flexible, but goop has identity.

Goop knows what Goop is with passionate certainty.

I, a human, in all my solid physicality,

Should, hypothetically, know exactly what I am.

But Goop has me beat in that category.

Goop’s victory is an utter landslide.

Teach me your goopy ways.

Teach me to be whole and brilliant and indomitable.

I think, if I were goop,

I’d somehow find a way to make it in this world.