You danced in my ecliptic
Circles, you drew in my gravity
And the world was made sick
By melting horizons, you followed happily

Do you remember in science class, basic forces? Nuclear Strong, Nuclear weak, Gravity, and I added to the lecture, “Love”. You laughed and put your head down on the glossy desk, photocopied with a layer of fake wood.

You danced so long we lost
History, and our first
kiss, and how star-crossed
we pretended to be, like a cartoon sunburst

When atoms collide a billion others listen, and excite with the creation of new love. Sustained nuclear reactions, you called it, and they all explode ecstatically and cities are leveled. “Nuclear bombs are atoms in love”.

You danced along my zodiac
And along Orion’s left foot you glided
and I never did look back
and wonder if we burned cities when we first collided

The fusion of atoms, like planets staring each other down in a circular ballet and finally dying in the other’s arms. Space flashes and dead light rains on us a million years later. We were dancing planets, and fused atoms, collided together, strong, a basic force that turned absolute dark into pure noon.

You danced along my orbital
And sang me folk songs on Riverview Hill
And split the colors into fractals
Where they stain the ground there still

You left without a kiss, my gravity torn into pieces to small to condense, again. I burned the city down, and put it out again, just to burn it down one more time. “Fission”, unimaginable awe. Ferocity born in anger, anger born in sorrow, as the death of two atoms basic connection burns mushroom clouds and scars the sky.

Did I cry a day after you had gone away?
Never for you, but for the city with no chance
In rubble; grey cement and mangled metal decay
Crimson red, in the wake of our dead romance

I travel alone along the darkening spheres, radiating lonely light to lonely planets. An atom without a pair, but for what I can remember. And I remember, for a minute, something you said. “Fission burns cities, but fusion burns planets”. And I reach the place where the light of our collision, which dimmed in the infinite horizons, shines beautifully like a new star, and remember that atoms torn apart make nuclear bombs, but when atoms collide it can burn the sun. Our love died, like torn atomic particles, but it was never outdone by the light of our fusion, the love we shared, and that light exists still, like a star in the sky that died a billion years ago, but still shines brightly.