Capella

    So cold is the surface of a distant star. Her light is millions of years old, her body withered and dead. Her light shone upon me, kept me safe from what may come. That star is completely devoid of any notion of my existence, yet I watch her as she passes over each night. The flick of a smile moves across my face, only to recoil into guilt.

    She's the subject of all the paintings in my house, her light dancing on my canvas like a playful muse. In my paintings I show my dreams; her wavering rays watching over beautiful nocturnal landscapes, her light guiding sailors in the night, her beauty: enthralling Greek philosophers. Many have known her touch; many have met her gaze but none like me. She doesn't shine for me like she shined for Aristotle, yet she glows in my absence. She doesn't guide me like she guided Leif Ericson, yet she makes me lose my way.

    Her celestial heartbeat flickers in my mind, for I crave her to descend to me. Her angelic light raises the hairs on the back of my neck, for I wish I was a pelican, so that I might ascend and take her in my maw and keep her as mine and mine alone. Her hum whispers in my ear, for I wish I was a sparrow so I might sing for her.

    The midnight sky is deeper than all of the oceans, and yet she's there at the surface. I sometimes sit awake, often under the influence of certain psychoactive fungi so that I might project myself into that vacuum. I never reach her before the morning, her vapor trail being the only thing left for me in her wake.

    At times I think she fears me, scared of my over-zealous attempts to woo her. Maybe she sees into my house only to see herself plastered all over my walls. At times this saddens me greatly; it's times like those that I entertain the thought of drowning myself in the creek out back so that maybe my body would decay and become a tree. Then I might gaze upon her forever, so that the sparrows might nest in me and serenade her so that she may look my way.

    Then, one night…she wasn't there. She wasn't among her constellation. She wasn't floating above the tree line. I guess millions of years of light finally ran out; even stars die. That was a very dark night. I decided to set out to make a fire. I piled up my writing and my paintings and set them aflame. Once they burned white hot, I laid myself upon them so I could burn for her on this last night, so that maybe a million years from now, my body might reach the Dwarf Star that took her place for a single caress of her body as my light reaches her surface. So cold is the surface of a distant star.