tear drop in the sky

You see the hazy vision of a girl floating amidst the endless abyss of space. The darkness is all-encompassing, but the glow emanating from her body brings a warmth to your fingertips. She blooms slowly but surely, a gorgeous blossom in the sky. When you close your eyes, you can feel the slide of her skin beneath yours, a touch so fiery and golden. When you open them, you find that she has vanished, a searing beam of light that you want to hold on to but must let go. The scorching yellow luster of her touch seeps into you, softens your bones and stains your complexion. You breathe in the heat, feel it cool in the space between moments.

You think of what the world means to you, nestled between the miracle of life and an infinite, sentient vacuum. Your world is the girl who carries a torrid supernova in her lungs, who regurgitates stars that glow like glitter, whose heartbeat matches the circle of day and night. She is the girl who remains suspended in the vastness of space, who never speaks but sees everything. The nothingness to which she is shackled to has sharpened her senses, raised her awareness to the unimaginable size of the universe. In comparison, you are so insignificant, so vulnerable, that you may as well vanish. You can feel the weight of the sky in her heartbeat, in the pulse of her slender wrist beneath your fingers. She is your world, without even knowing who you are.

The girl is lonely as she floats in a realm between your reality and hers. You see her through a distant looking glass, a mesh of cloud, fog, and fine dust. If you were to set aside the barrier she conjured to protect herself, she becomes real to you. Her eyes warm up, like dusky orange bleeding into the deep violet of your sunrise. Her mind is naked, open, susceptible. You feel your heart stutter, thrum away with the exuberant energy of your existence, and you feel both minuscule and enormous in your place in the world. You do not know anything about this glorious creature, but it only takes so long to become entangled in someone else’s existence. She is a part of your beginning, and will remain within you until your end. Her heartbeat keeps you alive, breathing vitality into your veins. You share her joy, the burden of her grief. For a single, breathtaking moment, she is less alone.

You kiss her because you can, because you know that she wants it too. Her vibrant eyelashes shadow the jut of her cheekbones, thin tendrils of darkness within an intense light. Her fingers linger on your jaw, drawing a feverish warmth into your numb skin.

Even with your eyes closed, you can feel her on every part of you. Her sunny mouth lingers on your bottom lip, before nudging down to kiss below your ear. Pressure glimmers in your belly, thickening until it feels like a nebula dangerously stretching across your insides. It heats your body, bringing it color and viability, flushing and trembling. The glide of her tongue against yours provokes an unmistakable spark, a feeling so ardent that you are nearly torn apart.

Ultimately, her orbit has shifted, ever so slightly, to overlap with yours. You are now a part of each other’s worlds, whether you are aware of it or not. The aching absence of space tugs you together, tangles your hair, mingles your breaths. She burns swiftly and ferociously, casting her brilliant rays unto your cool blue. You have not changed who she is, but you have most definitely altered her world to accommodate you, your hopes, dreams, interests, love. You begin your first revolution as a new entity. Nothing has ever felt so outlandish, yet you know you belong. Here, change is not a matter of otherworldly capacity, and instead one of will.

You have shown the girl who swims amidst stars in a navy winter sea what it means to be a part of something bigger than herself, more immense than anything she can imagine. You are too tightly tied to your bodily existence to comprehend the infinitesimal shift in the universe that you have caused. Instead of hurtling past her like an asteroid propelled off-course, she has tugged you in with her gravity. You circle one another, solitary pieces of a larger notion. She has found a friend.

Earth and life coincide, existing alongside one another with a set of unwritten rules. As such, the fragility of space and love are indefinitely bound together. The gravity between objects strengthen as space is removed, and they become more tightly coerced. Like that, you have clasped onto her, forever spinning in her vicinity, a permanent fixture in her world. You have changed one another for the better; simple and quiet, yet exuberant and memorable.