I. THE SUN

Our light burned out. The luminous spirit that kept us in sync, kept us aligned in an axis, rotating the same three-sixty degrees; gone before we could finish the enclasp of our last moment. How long is a moment? She was the sun, and I was the moon. She had her chance to shine— illuminating everything in her path, leaving people with a satisfaction, and beaming onto their skin. She left marks. She still left marks. But only because she loved so much. I know this because she loved me, gave me chances and opened my eyes. Gave me kisses that burned with ecstasy after being kept in the dark for so long. Gave me reassurance that lured me out of the shadows. Gravity holds the sun together. They balance each other. And sometimes, most times, in fact, balances can break. And it broke. All it takes is one moment. All it takes is the sun to swell up like a bruised ankle, swallowing everything its universe contains. All the stars, the colossal planets—it's like a burning black hole digesting everything that comes their way, soon entering the gravitational pull of the singularity that will cease their existence. As if they are nothing. I'm nothing. How long is a moment? Scientifically, 1.5 minutes. Only 90 seconds. Not long enough. 

II. THE MOON

All I am is half a person. Half filled with despair. Half filled with love. All I am is half a person. It's the awful truth, I won't lie—I don't lie. I quit my job two months ago. I haven't spoken to anybody in 554 hours and 43 minutes. (Who's counting?) But only because I'm nothing, nothing but an astrophotographer capturing contradicting nebulas. I'm nothing because I have no light, no shine —no euphoria. Inside me is a world with no power, a world with empty skies and dispiriting darkness. My phone has rang so many times that it's died. I've been walking on the pitch-black streets of Seoul for what feels like hours now, the sound of my footsteps echoing as my thoughts gradually intensify as I get closer to the campus. The Seoul National university, where it all started, where it all ended.

"I could possibly fall in love with you," she told me in a hushed tone, as though it was the deepest secret that'd ever escaped her chapped lips. I remember our first day under the blanket of stars, shining like a million diamonds. She confessed to me bluntly, gravely. And it left me breathless. "Don't tell me. Tell the stars." I walk and walk, my head tucked and fingers balled in the pockets of my hoodie. There's a chill outside that leaves my body shaking fragilely, like the wind will blow me away. When I do, however, look up to see the stars—hoping that she's there looking down on me, keeping me in place, aligned, and balanced—there's nothing. Nothing but a dim celestial body that represented myself.

I only come here every night for two reasons. The first reason being this is where it all began, where I met Her, where she shaped me. The second is fairly arguable, but this place always seemed like a second home to me, always— with the green fields made up of uneven grass to the tall trees and dirty lakes. It doesn't feel like I'm sneaking in because the security doesn't bother to stop me anymore. I think they just know. I'm not sure how that could be, or what it could be they're thinking, but they do, they know. I can see it in their eyes. Eyes: small meteorites. I make my way inside the university, focussing on the ground and my worn out sneakers that somehow have stayed intact after three years. I don't go to a specific place. Sometimes I run. Sometimes I stay close to the trees. Tonight, however, I rest my back to the cold and seemingly wet grass with a closed mouth. 

There it is, the moon staring back at me. It's like looking in the mirror. I'm pale like the moon. I'm dull. I don't shine and when I do, streetlights easily overpower it. That's just life I guess. Things empowering other things. Like when the brightest, most powerful star of all burned out by something small, meaningless. A disease. Something as simple as a ing disease that—that could've been washed away. That should've been washed away. My heart is hammering, tears forming and I keep trying to blink my eyes to get rid of them but all they do is flow straight down. It causes a blur in my eyes, everything around me no longer in focus, and the moon looks like there's something hovering it, protecting it almost—and it's Her. It makes me think of Her. 

III. THE STARS

I have a theory that the specks of the moon and specks of the sun make up star dust. I have another theory that Her and I together were bigger and brighter than all the stars in the sky. Which could be bull. It could also be— taking in consideration the accordance of the reality we shared together—the most truest theory I could ever form. The stars finally found me. I can see their weak twinkling in the sky, and I think if she were here beside me they'd reflect us with a sing-song harmony that could be heard through space and into our placid ears.

The constellations in the sky, none that I can make out with my non-telescopic eyes, all tell a story. Though each small twinkle holds a memory. And the entirety of the night sky, 20 quadrillion miles of serenity, holding bits and pieces of my life—ones I wish if I could just spin around again and again on a loop like the fastest planet in all of the trillions of galaxies, that I can experience them again. I've tried. It never happens. Our last moment was under the stars. (Sort of like Jack and Rose from that movie about the ship.)

Though we didn't make love in the back seat of a car, or made love at all for that matter, but we were still under the stars.( Under the world how we saw it.) Our last moment: 1.5 minutes. Only 90 seconds. Not long enough. Not enough time. Never enough time. "You can't be sad about this forever," she had told me wearily. Her eyes were tired and I knew she wasn't getting any sleep, too busy making records; recording the moon as it arose, and the rotation of the sky as it got ready for its sun at ungodly hours of the morning. "Our love was supposed to be eternal," I argued. "Our love already is eternal." "No," I said. "No, it's not." And with that she cupped my cheeks, her eyes gushing. We were like lighting in space. Unheard of. Electricity surging, flaring around rapidly as a complete void of nothing and the scream of silence wrapped around it. "Chanyeol" she quivered.

"Our love is between me, you, and the stars. It's a secret we'll withhold for as long as we can maintain blood rushing through our veins, but the stars—they'll keep it eternal for us, shine bright for us. Always." The sky was empty the night she died in my arms. 

IV. ISOLATION

What if all the stars and the colossal planets with their meaningful moons all align one day? What if we're living the last day the world will ever have to offer, and we spend it making promises that won't be fulfilled until the nonexistent tomorrow? I guess my point here is, how do we know? We don't, is the thing. We don't know when the end will happen; the inevitable, fearful, upcoming end. And similar to the fact on how it's humanly impossible to know how old the stars are, or the exact number of the trillions of galaxies there are outside this specific solar system—we tend to forget that we won't know our last whisper, either. I think that's important to consider, that the smallest mysteries are just as important as the big ones

. It's easy to keep yourself incarcerated in this world. It's huge. It's huge, but still small compared to everything else that's out there. That's what makes us, as humans, huge too, I suppose, because we're larger than insects and the occasional zoo animal, along with plants (okay, well, some of them), however compared to Earth as a whole—we're tiny, we're like a whole different series of insects. But we're still bigger than something, as well as the Earth, and that makes us... huge. I've been thinking a lot about everything lately. Every time, I somehow always find a way back to the universe. And sometimes, even fate; the complex four letter word. It's bigger than me, it's bigger than all of us—yet it's only four letters. Fate reminds me a lot of love, another four letter word. A word that causes endless people endless amount of heartaches each day. That's why when I think of fate, I think of love, because they're polar opposites. (This makes them related.) Fate: A supernatural power. Love: A supernatural feeling. 

V. ANGER

I'm not very religious, but I'd like to believe in something. The Big Bang Theory always seemed too far fetched to me, and I always got bored of researching it because of the lack of attention I paid in any science class. I never had a problem believing in a heaven and a hell. I just wish there was somewhere to go in between, for all the souls that died before finding themselves. I guess I'd just go to hell. At least I believed in her, if that even counted. I believed in her bias opinions and her dreams to venture off into the world that I was no longer apart of. I believed in her, to become what she couldn't be here, in this rotten town. I believed she would fill herself with constellations and sparking meteorites and then when she was ready to fume, she'd find her way back to me. Maybe. I throw my glass of water to the floor, watching it shatter and blinking as pieces of glass scurry around. I never knew what heartbreak was until recently.

(And by recently, I mean until six months ago, but six months isn't a long time when you lose someone you love because the sound of the door slamming plays on and on in your mind that you're sure everyday a part of them is leaving you.) I didn't know whether it was screaming and cursing, or if it was supposed to be filled with crying and depression. However, I think heartbreak is feeling all of it at once. When you're eating lunch and you suddenly drop your fork because there's nothing left but a television playing in the background. And then you're crying since you're alone and she left and you don't know when she's coming back. No one can hear your shouts, your desperate calls, and you're suddenly Pluto. Too small to be counted. her, her, for leaving, and thinking that I wasn't ready although my mind was a picture of her heavenly outlined in a night sky.

VI. BARGAINING

Maybe we'll fit the way we're supposed to when she comes back. Maybe I wouldn't be in this predicament if I wasn't the way I am. Maybe we should have never gotten together. Maybe she was the sun and I was the moon and there's a reason they only align for seven minutes.

Any longer collision, and we explode into pieces. Maybe, maybe, maybe, she needed a galaxy when I was just another world of my own.

VII. DEPRESSION

I always held onto too many memories and too little people. So I don't reach out to anyone, because I don't know anyone suitable enough to call other than her which would make it the tenth time this week and I'm sure she wants privacy. What's the point in talking to people who wouldn't understand? But, would she understand? That depends.

Would she understand why Venus was the hottest planet of all? Even so, I can't talk to her about her. It feels like I'm mourning someone's death. It feels like she's gone for good. It feels like she broke the other end of the promise. Yet I still love her, even if she's no longer existent. I love her, more than the sun for allowing her moon to take credit for the shine only she can absorb. So I sit, staring at the floor because it reminds me of the asteroid belt; all the pieces lost and surrounding each other as though they all belong. They do. I end up counting each piece.

VIII. ACCEPTANCE

What if all the stars and the colossal planets with their meaningful moons all align one day? What if we're living the last day the world will ever have to offer, and we spend it making promises that won't be fulfilled until the nonexistent tomorrow? I guess we'll never know. And I guess we'll have to accept that we'll never know everything. I know what I need and I know what's missing and I know that though the sun rises everyday, one day it won't, and the day it ascends its highest is the day she'll come knocking on my door.

Because she'll come and all the galaxies will reign; it'll be chaotic, something between wild and thick but with a calm serenity that will define us as people. I'm waiting and she's soaring. I'm the moon and she's the sun. I'm star dust and she's the flash behind me. Maybe our time wasn't right now, not in this place, but I like to think it will be someday, somewhere else. Whether it be in this lifetime or another one (how ever this whole eternity thing works), but we will cross paths again, like we promised to. I'll look to her, and say, "I saw you in my dream once. You were a galaxy, filled with one star only." The galaxy in my dream was her right eye, known for being black in colour. It is the brightest star I'll ever see.