Inversely

Maybe it is two stars, each mesmerized by the other. Their hellish flames lick the other as they consummate their desires, and a fiery display decorates one small corner of the evening sky. Both are scattered in a cloud of cosmic dust, the birthplace of a new generation of ill-fated bodies.

But what of the two stars locked in their eternal tango, dancing away timelessly and shining as one? They dance around each other, always apart. Though fearlessly burning, they forever long to be together, blind to all reason or consequences. Eventually, their light dims — either sputtering out or exploding in an awesome supernova — and their diffused matter will float through space in search of the lost memory of the other. Though their particles may come together and form a beautiful child, the original stars are there no longer. Neither shall know that their successor exists, that it too lives in search of its own destruction.

All in this universe seeks proximity, yet it is through proximity that all destroys, and is destroyed. In this pitiable existence, our predestined pursuit of pain is written in the sky.