Universal Roles.

Let’s play the Universe game.

I’ll be a star cloud because that’s what your presence reduces me to. A mass of luminosity and in those moments, I’m impossible to measure mathematically. Not with the naked eye, anyway. It’s simpler than that: you say my name and I’ll glow.

You can be the North Star, burning bright and hot. You’re Polaris because you stand out, because you’re a fixture in my sky. Because when I’m lost, I can find you and be okay. You’re my point of reference.

Speaking of Polaris, we can be the Big Dipper and Little Dipper, the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Big Bear and Little Bear – whichever name you prefer as long as we’re partnered together in perpetuity. Our bond will know no lingual or cultural or geographic limits. No matter where two people stand on this Earth, they’ll look up and see us and know that we belong together.

We can be whichever constellations you like, at least in the beginning. In the beginning we’ll be all starburst and Andromeda and other striking sights that’ll inspire envy; but it won’t stay that way.

This is when the game loses its sheen.

Maybe we’ll stop communicating. I’ll grow distant; I’ll grow colder like Mars. And you’ll grow angrier, volatile like Jupiter. A mess of rock and metal and discarded things will separate us, an Asteroid Belt of our grievances. But I’ll overlook it; I’ll still sit by your side and will your storms to quit brewing. Anything to make them stop brewing.

Or maybe you’ll grow distant first. Perhaps you’ll become the Sun and I, the Earth — turning in on myself to revolve around you because you are the light and what keeps me warm. Me rotating around you. Your selfishness so belittling that one day, I’ll become too small to be the Earth. So you’ll take my place, and I’ll become your moon. This is a better fit because some days I’ll appear to be whole but others? I’ll look like I’m half, or a quarter, or just a tiny sliver of who I was. On rare occasions, we’ll still align. I will pass through your shadow and bask in your sunlight; my face awash in gold and red and I’ll remember the way things were. But lunar eclipses, they’re few and far between and they’re not enough to save us.

Perhaps one moon won’t be enough for you, eventually. Eventually you’ll want what the others have, you’ll want eight moons or sixteen moons or more, so you’ll become Saturn. You’ll have more rings, more moons than you’ll know what to do with. And I will have no choice but to take the hint. I’ll be Pluto: downgraded and disregarded and cast aside. “You’re not even a planet anymore,” you’ll say, and I’ll know we’ll never be the same again. I’ll feel really, really small.

Finally it’ll become too much, the heartache. So I’ll be a supernova, one who was once a star but is now explosive, exploding, exploded. And it will be spectacular, you’ll be impressed by the amount of light I had inside of me. You had no idea just how much.

But it’s of no consequence. Because you are all of the planets, and all of the moons, and all of the matter; you’re all that matters. You are the sun; and you’ll just keep spinning and spinning and spinning.