i have been dead

for a very long time.

it's so cold, too cold.

the air is quiet, my thoughts are loud.

ashes and flame, all at once.

i want to live again

to forget the permanence of death-

i wanted freedom

but not like this.

Mother was born in the Oort cloud, an icy sphere at the edge of our solar system. A place comprised of debris bouncing around this cosmic pinball machine, our little piece of the galaxy. One day she decided to zig instead of zag, her mass built up just right with a heaviness of ice and forgotten bits left over from the Big Bang. She’d heard of a planet, named Jupiter, with the power to get her closer to the sun. Having always wanted to visit the all powerful Sun, that great star they revolved around in worship, she gathered up the last pieces of mass she could find and pushed her way toward Jupiter.

Sungrazers they call them and she was on her way to becoming one. Many cheered her on as she passed them by. Her spectacular tail growing the closer she came to the Sun, curving and sparkling with magnificent beauty. Her request to Jupiter had been simple, she only needed to be near him, this spectacular center of her universe whom she had admired for so long. She wanted desperately to feel the tingle of his radiation and was more than willing to pay the price of coming so close to the great life giver, her star. Jupiter obliged her by using his gravitational pull and his great mass to send her onto a path leading straight for the glowing ball of fury, their God. With all his might he threw her harder than any other comet that had come before. How brave she was, my Mother.

The Sun took in her growing beauty as she came nearer and coveted her above all else for it was a lonely position, to be the center of attention. The planets and comets in his orbit flow around him day after day but never dared to come so close as she. He watched her approach, tail glowing, with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. There was a reason few dared such an extraordinary feat for even he could not control his power.

The day finally came, she was ready, and as she lowered her mass in reverence to him he felt a great pull. Something deep within his core recognized her as the one he had always needed. With an interstellar sigh heard throughout time, in a powerful tidal force of cosmic love, I was born.

Father bid farewell as Mother continued her path back to the Oort cloud and I, evidence of their love, made my way toward his most beloved planet Earth.The day I entered the atmosphere of my new home was glorious. Father, so proud to gift me to this precious world of his, looked on as I burst through each layer of gas to meet my final resting place. Scaly heads tilted in awe and enormous trees bowed before me. A trail of his fire and smoke signaled my royal lineage when I landed. An impressive tidal wave of dust finalized my coronation, a testament to my Mother’s greatness.

Father looked on with pride as the world reset, regrew, and from the ashes his Stardust children were born...

We wander in eccentric

Circles

Destined to revisit our path

In days or millennia

Star

Comet

Planet

Galaxy

We shed our debris

Jostling our cousins

Neighbors receive

the shards of our

Death

Glorious streaks

Billows of light

Booming explosions

Nudge new life

Birthing generations

of balanced strife

For where we must go

We always return

Change is slow

Collision our game

Black holes

The matrix binding us all

i'd hate to generalize. but it's an unavoidable truth that not all objects were created equal. size, density, composition, location, velocity and direction all go into the marvously complex question that is the psychology of celestial objects.

take a small rock. just a few miles wide. its mass will determin how much energy will be required to move it. it has its own ways of looking at things and it may take quite a lot to get it to move.

on the other hand it may also take a lot to convince the same rock to change direction. depending on just how much they are set in their ways.

that is the thing about celesial bodies. no one asked them if they they wanted any of this. they just came about , through a history that is mostly violent, and they deal with things the best way they can. some delve too much into their pain. some give to others and radiant warmth. but in space , no one hears you scream...mostly. unless you give them a chance to open up. so much can change from this.

here are just a few examples i've come across.

they all need help. existing in this universe is not easy for anyone. it doesnt matter what are you. you can take so much before you snap, go off the rails. it doesnt really matter to the individual if he's coming close to reletivistic speeds, or whether they are just newtonically 'fast' . no one has a smooth, blemish-free surface. well...except for black holes, but with the bottomless singularity they've got, i don't envy them at all.

craters and coronal ejection, fissures and frozen dunes. its all pretty depressing. and it doesnt even matter what physical state of matter you're made of, or how many layers you have, or how active is your magnetic field.

now , i specialize in medium to large asteroids. i do planetoids and comets too. i try to keep them from getting carried off into some insane adventure. i try to help them maintain a functional and yet dynamic AND safe orbit. and let me tell you that they are a massive ring of unhappiness.

sometimes they had enough. they just let themselves be carried away in events. they know it is not going to turn out well. but despite the help we offer them they just end up as a burning streak on some atmosphere.

meteorites have this hate in them. they see things with loathing. sometines quite a lot of racism. they just smash into things. leaving massive craters. cause they know deep down that they could have been better. but it was always easier to burn rather than build. i pity meteorites.

comets, well, are more overcompensating in their low-density than anything else. they are compositionally just a bunch of water and ammonia ice, maybe a bit of heavier stuff. they hate that. silica and metal-rich objects just drive them mad. and everything you say to them they take as a patronizing. they flash their volatiles for short periods of time. when coming close to the sun. the sun, by the way is the only one that can get through to them. but she has her own agenda.in the end they usually see that all that radiance they get is just a honeytrap . they either break off, flying in shame to darker hiding places, or they turn vindictive, slamming into something, usually the sun.

some planetoids and planetecimals, spin round themselves, trying to escape abusive partners. they often fail, and get tidal-locked to real creeps, who squeeze them so hard thay thet burn on the inside. you won't see the pain on the outside easily. they are quite experienced with covering up the violance.

but it is possible to see. i will not name names, but tiger-stripe fissures don't show up if you are leading a happy life.

planets i try to not take as patients. they will give you a whole song and dance, but you know the truth is deeper, and you wont ever get there, the way the go on. freezing up tectonically is not a solution to existential enui, neither is engulfing stray bodies, just for putting up some trophy rings. if you want us to look at you, and feel you then just talk. no one buys this ostentatious crap. i dont care how dense you are in the core, or how rich you are in hydrogen.

i will conclude by saying something about neutron stars. those guys roll with the punches. they lost so much of their mass, entire strata gone. but do they give up? no.

do they just say, 'screw it. i'm going to implode?' No they do not. they take all that pain, all that angular monentum and just keep going. it doesnt matter to them . they are hard and bright and they can do so much with so little. they are the real stars.

"You're not alone."

"I know, I know, Halley. The grand cosmos is full of unimaginable wonders. "

"Your sarcasm is really coming along, but I meant, I'm here."

"You're not here, here."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You have your own path. You're here for a while, and then you're gone again, and I'm alone again."

"I always come back."

"Yes, but for how long?"

"Well...we're part of the same galaxy, so I imagine I'll be around for a while. Besides, it's not just me that's here. What are there, like 83 of you? Where is this coming from?"

"I just feel like it's all pointless. Just spinning around this god-forsaken gas ball. There isn't even life here. And like you said, there are 83 of us. Why do I even need to be here?"

"I mean, most planets don't have life. Doesn't make being a moon any less meaningful."

"I don't know...I have water. Just seems I ought to be doing more...more than just spinning."

"We're all spinning on different routes."

"I suppose so."

"You're doing great."

"Thanks."

The emptiness of the universe flies by me, but yet I do not feel lonely. It is here among the vast continents of nothingness that I can so clearly see my flames drawing light onto the canvas of space. In the darkness that surrounds me, I am a herald, my flame, a single guiding light among the widening gulfs. I may be a single piece in the grand physics of the universe, but my magnificence has no end in the empty vacuums of space.

My experiences are numerous and vast. In my travels, I have witnessed the birth of stars. I have seen the explosive creation of light so powerful that I am almost certain I would have been engulfed if I was near. I have also seen the death of my older brothers. Their implosions leaving a scar in time and space, as if its heavy end was already not enough for the universe to bare. I have witnessed floods of diamonds coming down on oceans frozen solid in the dark nether worlds of galaxies. I have observed the tornadoes of fire ravaging barren hell wastelands. I have encountered plains eternally bathed by the flames of their stars, their stone bleached a glistening white so blinding, the reflection could set a planet ablaze. Each new world is another addition to my unique journey from the asteroid belt where I came.

There are very few entities in the entirety of the universe that can compare to my own existence. As I travel further into the void, I know that I will only become more experienced in my travels. When my end finally comes, it will be a well earned one. Until then, you can find me in your night sky when the time is right.

Do you see me?

Because I see you.

Down below...

Watching you.

I'm sure you'd rather be up here.

I'm sure you'd rather be up here.

Searching for answers...

Wishing you were elsewhere.

But I see you,

Might be a glimmer in tear stained eye.

That says,

Yes, you'll be fine.

I can see you.

Hope you do,

Because I'm excited to see...

What's next.

The ancients

looked up

universally entertained

informed and lost

in the big screen above

by the glittering stars

giving them names

having them act out dramas

with plots that thickened

watching the reruns

year after year.

So like us

finding ourselves

pulled in to our media

looking to our stars

and the drama of our scenes

losing ourselves

to their great power.

Have you heard the bad news?

There’s a comet coming for you

Soon the king will be dead

For l have kissed his ring

To the morning I shall send

His head in my handbasket

I’m quite anxious to meet

And escort you into the night

A night I cannot escape

Though I wander the black cosmos

You’ve tethered me to your sun

Round and round

I spin and glow

For all the folks at home

So long I’ve ached to tell

My cold and icy tale

One as discarded as dust

Pieces of me crumble

Tremble and break off

Splinters in your atmosphere

Trails of diamonds, forest fires

And fallen kingdoms in my wake

All my weight and sense of being

Are but one furious impulse

Frozen in the depths of time

Lost and purposeless

So lonesome in my orbit

I wish among the other stars

Vain desires

Of fateful collision

Lightyears away

Yet I creep ever near

Have you heard the bad news?

There’s a comet coming for you