Marriage

The earth once shared its orbit with another planet, about the size of Mars. These two circled each other for billions of years, maintaining a delicately braided, orbital path. For one to come closer to the sun, the other would wait through the period of its shadow. One could never slip too far ahead without feeling its momentum drain and lurch back into the coupled corkscrew of that long symbiosis, year after year, until one day their equilibrium slipped. And the two planets collided, with a violent shudder, and what remained of the second planet was smaller then. Cold, and barren. And that was, so they theorize, the formation of the moon.

Where you go, I will be unable to stay far ahead or behind. When you move into the sun, I will wait in the patient dark behind you. Drawn around the sun by ourselves and each other. And if ever that delicate symbiosis decouples, know that I could not slip away cleanly into space. The collision would come first. And if it broke me in two, at least half of me would stay behind, still orbiting, silently, colder, drawing on your tides.