Flash Fiction - Two
Inspired by this image, the prompt we created to write a 500 word story is:
“We were made of stardust and moonlight.”
Image Source unknown (please let me know if you know the original artist!)
The Harsh Shadows of the Moon
We were made of stardust and moonlight. Once, as cosmically fated as are night and day.
Our memories etched themselves into the fabric of my skin, as if they were constellations made from sun-kissed freckles under a lifetime lived underneath the glow of your radiant sun.
I see you in every star-filled night. In every rising sun over the ridged mountains.
When the moon has folded itself into rest, your essence illuminates a blackened sky. And when the fullness of Luna is on display to cast bright shadows on a greying earth, your shine is still the most blinding.
I would’ve orbited universes, molded myself into a cosmic thing and held my breath with aching lungs, just to find you again and again.
You are my moon, my sun and all of my stars – deserving of a seat in the highest of heavens, I would’ve given you anything you asked for – I would’ve folded by your feet just with the glimpse of your dimpled smile, ripped my heart out from behind my sternum and offered it to you bloodied and red, if it meant one more moment in this life that could belong just to us.
How tragic, my love, that we can only meet here. In the nebula of dreams – in the space between asleep and awake, we have had so little. A splintered fragment of time that belongs only to us.
Under the light of the strawberry moon all those centuries ago, you made your choice.
I would’ve chosen you over and over, but as the cicadas called under a rising moon in a violet sky, beckoning for you to reconsider, you took the bait.
You let the sun set over our final night together, knowing it would leave me here, in this eternal damnation, searching for you every single evening just to remind myself that we were something wild and wonderful.
My love, we had it all.
Time was on our side.
Millennia could have passed before I’d have ever thought you would choose the darkness.
But as I have so gravely learned, the curse that entwines us in this tireless pursuit runs through every atom and particle that makes up our skin and bones.
I will no longer look for you here, my love.
It seems the gods favor our suffering, but I will not take the bait.
I will forever miss you, my love, but I can no longer bleed out in the hope of being chosen, all because you succumbed.
Because I was not enough.
Thanks for reading this week’s flash fiction! If you’re interested in participating, feel free to comment yours below!