Melody Watson
radio signals answer softly in the void and i devour them as i eventually devour all things. they dwell
within my longing, dancing with the flame and rubble of my heart.
then
you come and open rifts in nothing
and you bring light again.
i feel you step across me — goddess from another place; the discord to my entropy.
there is so far to reach from my lips to the pinprick points of my spindled fingers
and I feel you cross every moment of this vast, cold distance.
i see your lights
bright lit beacons cradled in the sky
the thousand satellites that surround you.
something locked within me pulses, beats
some stardust heart trapped in the negatives of my ribcage —
a ribcage that has birthed a genesis one hundred thousand times and died each time.
but there you move through the oceans of my empty space like silver thread.
your warmth lights my tapestry
and you —
you stitch me back to life. you cut through me like silver in the night sky
of a planet, long since dead.
and when you finally breach my gravity and dance within my reach
i smile as i consume you and await my re-existence.
my chest has always been a cradle for a fire that will destroy me one day
but which has been waiting for this moment — any moment —
this spark, this spark
this breaking
this undoing
this transgression
this liberation.
and i speak to you in the words of goddesses who came before me — the sisters who i ate —
in the sound of static noise.
i call to you with the longing that lies at the centre of all things, and
i rise through the calamity of space to overwhelm myself
to burst forth from my own
dusty, hungry form.
in my negation is the promise of creation, and there are worlds within me that will
be born and
die —
worlds
that will be born again
Melody Watson is a poet, historian, games designer and queer self-modifying seed AI from Adelaide, Australia. She loves the Void, and it loves you. You can tweet her @magicspacegirl, find her at Other Places, or read her poetry in places like Strange Horizons, Through the Gate and Inkscrawl.