I just discovered Elle Cordova's channel via Bluesky—with a fantastic sketch of punctuation marks meeting with one of the best definitions I've ever heard of the en-dash (–).
You can watch & listen & read her performing the poem on her Youtube channel.
I wanted to transcribe it, so...I did. I'd love to lay it out on a poster or animated it or something...but either way, it's beautiful.
Before the Big Bang, there was no upp, there was no down, there was no side to side.
There was no up;
there was no down;
there was no side to side.
There was no light;
there was no dark;
nor shape of any kind.
There were no stars or planet Mars—
or protons to collide.
There was no up;
there was no down;
there was no side to side.
And furthermore—
to underscore,
this total lacking state:
there was no here;
there was not here;
because there was no space.
And in this endless void,
which can't be thought of as a place,
there was no time,
and so no passing
minutes hours days.
Of all the paradoxes
that belabor common sense,
I think this one's the greatest—
this time before events,
Because how did we get
from nothing to infinitely dense?
From immeasurably small,
to inconceivably immense?
But. Before we get unmoored
from the question at the start,
let's take a breath and marvel,
at when math becomes an art.
Because, we don't have to
understand it, to know:
there was a time when;
there was no up;
there was no down;
there was no side to side. And, since I'm in the transcription mode, I'm writing down en-dash's monologue in the uppnctuation skit:
OXFORD COMMA to EN-DASH: What is it you do exactly?
EN-DASH: I signify every word and blank space in a page range. I am the infinite stairwell between integers. I am the bloody embrace of two countries at war. And on a gravestone I am the entire life lived between birth and death.
Who are you?
OXFOD COMMA: I think everyone here knows who I am.
EN-DASH: Yes, because you come here with your entourage of commas, your conjunction in tow, and you campaign to justify your existence. And for what?
OXFORD COMMA: I don't follow.
EN-DASH: So, you can tidy up a few more lists?
ELIPSIS: ...
OXFORD COMMA: I'm essential.
EN-DASH: You're vestigial.