A poem that traces the arc of two souls collapsing into each other through the metaphor of stellar merger—that moment when two distinct bodies orbit closer and closer until they can no longer exist separately. It moves from gravitational invitation through collision into transcendence, exploring desire as a force that unmakes and remakes the self.
Supernovae
Come closer— give me your gravity let me feel the tightening alchemy of your existence. the way you pull me into your orbit— a spiral tightening. Forget the stars aligning— let's create galaxies with our bodies, colliding until we ignite inside each other. The sun burns brighter with our aching hunger, and the moon pulses beneath the heat of our fevered skin. Let's surrender to this— a cataclysmic waltz, pulling us tighter, our bodies spiral into brilliant coalescence, burning with borrowed youth, shattering the heavens, scattering ourselves as stardust across the void.
Author’s Note
This is one of those poems that started as one thing and ended up somewhere else completely. I wrote the second stanza about six months ago. I loved the cosmic metaphors in it. But it just didn’t land with readers at the time. So I put it in my list of poems to revisit and completely forgot about it (can you see a recurring theme with me as an artist? haha).
Ironically, I’ve been having a pretty nasty case of writer’s block lately, so I went looking through my list of poems to revisit to see if anything would pique my creativity or at least give me some inspiration for another poem. After rereading this one, I was going to publish just the original stanza. But at the last minute, I decided to freshen it up a little bit. I wanted to add another stanza without losing the original. As I was messing around with it, I came across the term “stellar collision/merger” to describe a cosmic merging, which is exactly what’s happening in stanza two.
As I read further into the cosmic physics of this phenomenon, I realized it was an exciting vehicle for exploring desire as a force that unmakes and remakes the self through dissolution with another. What a fascinating way to describe intimacy. The metaphor felt so precise and inevitable. The poem transformed from a fragment into something new and whole.
Which line resonated with you the most?
If something here resonated with you, please feel free to share your thoughts. Your likes, comments, and shares genuinely make my day brighter!
Ah, the writer's affliction: starting as a poet and ending as an astrophysicist.
I particularly like "give me your gravity": the idea that that elementary force is something that can be offered or taken at will. Lovely work.
“colliding until we
ignite inside each other” is my favorite line.