Uncollided

You are flung through space at 400 metres per second while being constantly crashing with 600 newtons of force into a mass much bigger than you will ever begin to fathom, while slowly getting closer to a body so warm it will melt the skin off your bones. And then melt your bones too. Constantly spinning, rotating, dizzying. Yet it seems the person next to you notice none of this. Instead, they point their finger towards the night sky as if their arm is made of nothing, but air and they tell you to look at the moon, how pretty and full it is. As if they forget this tiny dot in the sky commands the oceans. As if they thought I could ever forget its pull on my body.

           The moon doesn’t have its own light. It simply reflects the sun’s. Rays that would normally pierce your eyes and leave you blinded are softened to unrecognizable shades, shattered and deflected. You’ve been watching into the sun for too long and as you look away from the moon and over to Charlie, you’re again reminded of that very first time you were blinded. When you realised how she shines from within while you simply reflect. A distortion of her truth dulled by your lies. Secrets no one can know. Hidden in the shadows others are too busy to see.

           But you think Charlie knows. Of course, she does. From that very first time. She must have seen how goosebumps sprouted all over your arms by her simple touch on you slouching shoulders, how you shuddered with delight from seeing her smile at something you said. You no longer remember what it was, all that mattered was the radiation from her exposed teeth that pierced through all your carefully built defences. She must have known she was the first to be let in. The first to enter into orbit in a hostile atmosphere of toxic gases. The only one to land on the freezing surface of my soulless planet. Nothing but frozen blue rocks in sight.

           In the days following her landing, she started her detailed exploration, leaving no rock unturned. And in her wake luscious grass would sprout.  You’d grow, come alive.

           But not with her, never truly with her. Even now when she was no more than a finger-width away, you had never felt more alone. Where her heat normally kept you warm during breezy summer nights, your shoulder was now cold. You want to reach up, reach out. Grasp what is happened, hold it in your hand and examine the weight of it. But you cannot. It remains unspoken. You glance at her as she gazes at the sky, shimmering with lights of stars, beating. Burning. Protostars formed from a nebula eventually become real stars until they burn out, die in a supernova and become part of another star-forming nebula. A beautiful cycle of birth, death and rebirth. But what if you turn out to become a black hole? What if you already are? Taking and taking everything but letting nothing go, giving nothing back. Destroying everything in your path. What if you’re slowly taking everything from Charlie? Maybe that’s why her arms are suddenly so thin, her eyes sunken. She’s shivering, so you put your arm around her, holding onto anything that’s left.

           The first time you met Charlie was in class. She found you with your headphones on but didn’t seem to notice as she started flailing her arms around in big gestures. You never heard the first part, but quickly the two of you connected through music, texting through your favourite song quotes. For your birthday she gave you a USB with all her favourite part of songs mixed into one. She wasn’t much of a musician, so it was quite a messy mixed. That’s why you loved it. Like all the colours mixed together but still separate enough to discern them. Like Charlie’s bubbly nature, never sitting still. Always ecstatically ready for the next at-home adventure. And for her birthday you had recreated the album of her favourite band that she was unable to get. Even down to adding a picture to the CD. When she started crying with joy, you knew, it was the right gift. Originally you had added your own song as the finishing number, but you didn’t want to ruin the illusion, so she’s never heard it. She probably never will.

           Charlie shifted slightly in your arms, further hiding her face from the world as she had done for so long. She made sure to still be able to see the sky, her ring glimmering in the moonlight. You looked down at your matching one, but the light seemed to never catch its stone, so it remained matte, dull. The irises of her eyes like two galaxies, too far away to reach yet close enough to admire. You can smell the mixture of her lemon shampoo and mango perfume blend with the chemical smell of paint still stuck to her fingers and hair. She’d finally painted something again. It brings a rush of nostalgia from their early days. When they had hung out and you played your bass as she painted in her sketchbook. It seemed Charlie had a new one every other week, but you never know if she’d finished the old one or just gotten tired of it. You often wondered when she’d replace you too. But a year passed, and she never did. She had even dedicated an entire sketchbook to whimsical drawings of ghosts floating around a small cartoon version of you. She’d called it Maurice’s Monsters. Although Charlie never truly understood your monsters, she did know how to make them seem less important. It was a relieving sensation to be free of your shackles for even a bit. Even if they always came back, heavier than before with the weight of longing.

           Charlie finally found a comfortable position in your arms. She’d always been skinnier than you, but it had never mattered. It seemed she preferred it that way as she had often joked about how our bodies fit together. You had agreed. Often the two of you could lie down napping for hours, reclaiming the sleep the night often hadn’t allowed either of you. But even perfect matches don’t always work. One lighting the other on fire until all that is left is ashes.

And just like the moon can only ever chase the trace of the sun, you only hope to see Charlie's light. Even if it can never be yours. Never anyone’s.

The stars above burn as brightly as you hope Charlie one day will again, whether on earth or among the stars as she had jokingly confessed as her eternal goal. She’d had many dreams of floating among the stars and you’d listened to all the dramatic reenactments, seeing her eyes lit up with ecstasy. The heavy pull of the earth is a constant reminder, a constant force for you to fight, but it seems that Charlie never concerned herself with such trivial matters. Wordlessly you both get up. Your concrete boots drag over the dewy summer grass as you start marching forward.  Charlie silently floating next to you, grabbing your arm lightly.

Again, you look up at the stars and all you can hope is that no matter where she is, no matter how much time passes you and her will see the same moon. Buried under the night sky every day, sharing the same earth.