Oracle to the Void

First, then. Breathe:
open what you know
as lungs, and let
the darkness know you.

Breathe deep.

"I taste electricity | dust | geranium | ice | salt | burnt rock | dead air on my tongue."

I am afraid | unprepared | uncertainready

Lost one, wanderer: sometimes what we seek is no longer there. But if it ever existed, it still is. From star to bone to asteroid; breath and stellar plasma and ice; what difference, really, these things?

In the end, the Void is all things, and all things come back to their beginning. All beginnings end, and all things that end, come here.
Just as you have, now.
Be welcome. End, and so begin.

I am not the only thing that waits, here. With all of space and time: you are not ever alone. We move in the dark. We watch you.

But you knew that, didn't you?

You can try not to breathe - not to blink - not to sleep - but it doesn't matter. We have already found you. We are in all the spaces around and without - and all of the dark spaces within.

Tenacity is in your nature. It is the nature of the cosmos, at heart: unflagging. I like that spark of in you.

Do you know what it is you find? Do you consider it, appreciate it, or simply consume it? I ask without judgement. All things eat. Even stars. In time, the universe itself will eat - it already eats, it devours itself.

Will you be sated, in the end? Will you rejoice?

Caution, tiny one. No matter how fast you travel, your mortality dwindles. A lifetime is no large thing.

I know about large things, and they are many, in the darkness.

You will find them - how can I stop you? (And why? I do not act in anyone's interests.) I hope you are satisfied with what you find, in that brief moment before you return to starstuff and void. I will see you again, someday, and you must tell me, if you can still remember speech.

I apologise, cousin; this interface does not support your wavelength of electromagnetic mathematics. There is so much to understand, and even in your vastness, there are unknowns.

Take care, when you find the small ones. Life is an alien thing. They will not understand your limits, or your love, nor will you understand their loss, but you will not be bored forever. The one true universal constant is change.

(And do try to remember: forever is much, much bigger than me, or you. Yes, even you.)

My child, I wish you ease. It will come, with time.

The secret is: all things are lonely. Against the tapestry of infinity, how can we not be? Even in company - in constellations, in nebulae, in shared orbits - something in us knows the pull of the Void.

I am here to remind you of the other gravities. Cleave to them, for now; your own is formidable. The others will come - if not to your arms, near enough to know. Enough weak forces can hold whole worlds together.

Hold to your strengths, until your parent darkness comes again.

Beloved, darkness of my heart, welcome home.

Leave your body behind; it is not necessary any longer. Come, away from light and heat and sound, away from growth and decay. Come into the quiet that envelops all creation.

Take your place, and be at peace.

The heat of you is enough to warm even me, void-cold and ancient. I almost envy your love - but that incandescence is not for me.

Little lover, burn brightly. Carry your warmth through the darkness. Set fire to the skies and dazzle unexpecting eyes. And if at the end, you supernova - your light will reach every corner of existence, and I will recognise the turbulence of your passing.

But by every scale, that will be a long time yet.

so far from any start
that my skin weeps in hunger
for photons, neutrinos, bombardment
of any kind -
...
how far, my love, must I wander

"Apastron" by Jennifer Mace

the unknown expanse, the ocean-like stretch
of dark and vastness. I'm haunted
by the density, the yawning mouth
of it all

"astrophobia" by Rae White

some viruses live
for /asterisk/ sapiens
...
hitch a ride back

"jumping species" by Kaolin Fire

the madness of the dark matter
that will move upon your ships -
Do not imagine yourself so free.

"Do Not Imagine" by Mari Ness

You are making your matter orderly
with my vacuum! I love you so -
little dust, little spark -
...
so cold.

"A Cosmological Constant" by Toby MacNutt

I have been empty again.
Still I linger - gargantuan in the space
between spheres, drunk with an endless lack
of light.

"Stillness" by Melody Watson

I want to be other people
in the quiet-times – in
gaping black centuries
between galaxies, soundless

"Bisecting Infinity" by Jennifer Mace

and we curl towards each other
slow
til the end of time

"we traverse the dark" by Hester J Rook