Eclipse Attracts — Cosmic Short Story

Cosmic Series I

This piece was originally done last year, but was entered into the UA competition for January.

It was my attempt to be softer because their reaction to my proposed piece in Luciferian Chronicles made me stall.

Now I put it forth for you to decide…

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I am the warmth that lights the universe. I am the sentry who nurtures my celestial children, but I’m always alone. I watch the cosmos be birthed into life — always the observer — as it forms, new rhythms that begin to emerge into existence. I cradle them in my rays, and they flourish.

Millennia of isolation go by upon the solar winds as dust and rock make new life — new formations. Every new day, I rise to the vast empty skies to the cataclysms, the destruction, and the violence of creation.

As they clash and fight for their place, I look upon them proudly as they find their purpose. Still, I ache to be held, and they only offer me silence. As the mantles cool and the verdant springs bloom, I rise this morning but to something familiar that resonates with my core.

As I stretch out into sunset, my fingers glide past a presence; there is a spark — a recognition.

Only brief but ever-present — fleeting then gone.

Though there is something new now as I drift on the horizon, I see the frozen gaze of a new body taking vigil over my favourite as I do each day. Together, we shared a twin thread to see our child flourish over leagues of longing.

We endure as he harbours the dark, and I ignite the light — two poles at opposite ends.

The pull of gravity keeps us apart; with each passing shadow, we spin in a waltz that repels us from being close to one another. The very rules that brought me and my children life are now the constraints that keep me alone.

I yearn for those tender moments each morning where we graze each other; they fuel my being, but my love looks to be in pain with each passing. With each day, I dance with rays of love to share what I have with the one who tempers my fever with his chill.

It pains me to see him with each revolution weep new tears of ice because we are ripped from each other with the passing turn. I burn brighter to the point of exhaustion to tell him I am here, and he cowers paralysed in fear that we will never come together.

The years faded, and we are two souls never occupying the same room. One tortured by what we are denied, while I will take every caress I can feel. For I remember the days of not even having my love to gaze upon when the skies were a vast space filled with hushed children.

As the sands passed, like a quill that bound me in ink, there came a time when the dark became one with the light. He found a way to close the gap and veil my radiance to our child — now we could be locked in one another, undoing the knots that bound us both.

As darkness drowned out my core, I felt breathless and trembled at his frozen touch against my blazing tendrils. He held me, and we completed each other — he was the blizzard that cooled my inferno. When he finally kissed me, it sizzled and created steam between our passing lips. He hesitated as we drew close, but in my joy, I denied it — only later would I see the debt I had incurred.

I finally got to whisper in his ear: “I love you,” but he did not return my pleas; instead, he became wrapped in melancholia.

This moment felt like an eternity, but while I thought it could go on forever, he knew it was finite, and it pained him to feel my touch — only to be then ripped away once again.

For him, our love brought pain, and I was blind to it in my desire to be known.

When the meeting of our souls ended, I felt a new hunger to go back to that moment of stillness, but I think it cost my love a piece of himself each time. We both hungered for more; the only difference was the price we paid.

Every new dawn that I rise now, when we touch, it is stained with the memory of the taste of lunar dust upon my lips. I am lost in the need to be wanted.

Though I ask, will the toll be something I can repay when my desire eats away at the one I want?

A passing notion as I stretch to eternity and will keep returning to my love, even if there is blood to be paid.

I rise every morning,

Only to see a hair’s glimpse of him,

Our fingers touch,

But we never grace each other in love,

For he is the moon,

And I am his sun,

Always on opposite ends — he and I…

Measured in infinite lifetimes of borrowed light.

(My breath caught, always saying goodbye)

Always at an arm’s reach,

Never meant to touch,

But close enough to feel —

The fire to ignite your soul…

We are apart, never whole.

I am a man burning bright with needs,

I am warmth, he is the frost,

Together we are a shared hunger,

Heavenly stars that come with a cost,

I want to burn with his cratered gaze,

Stretch across the boundaries…

Share with him my solar rays.

(Is there hope we can meet someday?)

Forever at an arm’s reach,

Torture never to touch,

But every eclipse, close enough to feel —

The heat dying for his alabaster soul…

We will always be apart, never whole.

That is all we get,

The time when the sky goes dark,

A brief second to touch,

To kiss and bless our broken love,

I yearn for those times,

It blazes my core,

When we meet across the skies…

There is no shame, only two bodies doing what is right.

(A dream of every goodnight)

I whisper those words,

With the taste of you on my lips,

Till we meet again on every eclipse.

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