“How does a relationship exist beyond the stars?” people often ask me. “How can it exist anywhere else?” I want to say back. Is your love confined to this earth alone? If it is, how will it last? How will it truly exist in this vast universe, constantly spinning and shifting and changing and creating, if it is confined to only this earth? My lover is not confined to this earth. She is in the stars, endlessly creating, galaxies in her hands, breathing auroras into existence. When I reach for her, I am falling. I do not know how to fly. I am confined, like the simplicity of earthly relationships, to the ground beneath me, breathing nothing but the air around me. I know only how to reach, clouds tangled in my fingers, sunlight burning me when I try to reach further. She is so much more. She knows everything. Her feet have never touched the ground, but she knows the colors of the flowers that grow in the moonlight, the softness of the rivers flowing miles beneath the earth, the deep coldness of space that the sun allows her to feel, watching her sadly as she goes; she deserves warmth and warmth alone, a truth every molecule in the universe knows, but she is too loved to be denied even the pain. I am reminded of everything she is when I look into her eyes. Her eyes are the color of chocolate from the south coast of West Africa, as warm as the gentle sunlight carried to her from ninety million miles into the depths of the universe, as clear as the river that gave way to the first beautiful waterfall I ever hiked to in Oregon. They are always melting, reflecting the cities of this world, then the churning of the ocean tides, giving way to the diamond rains of Neptune. How could our relationship exist so simply on the earth, when the girl I love is so much more than an earthly being? She is a creation of angels; not the angels that live in the heavens, softening the horizons, playing the trumpets that shift the clouds, but the cruel angels who created the fabric of the universe, who thought to give me an ephemeral hope of love that could easily vanish with a strong enough wind. This earthly world is prone to hurricanes, after all. There is one I am too familiar with, one deserving of a name I cannot think of: a name that could be defined in a word as the realization of one's insignificance. It comes as I sit on cracked concrete, staring at a sunset. Swirling colors that once kept my attention long, that continue to captivate the undreaming people that walk this planet, now cannot even compare to my lover's breath. Yet knowing the sunset is as far as the people of this earth dream, it reminds me of the girl at the depths of my own dream. It reminds me that I am on an earth where people don't know how to dream; it reminds me that I belong to this earth, and I cry. It's so painful, after all, knowing I am not what she deserves. It's human nature to question everything we have and everything we know. It's human nature that I hide on the beach, staring into the depths of our human universe, questioning why her gaze has lingered on me. It's perhaps fate's will, however, that defies this human nature that constantly tugs me away from her. Or it might be human nature itself, I realize, defying itself. After all, it is because of human nature is why that I selfishly look for a reason to hold onto what I know I long for. It is human nature that I look for a reason that will allow me to cement her presence in my life. I will find a cracked hourglass, washed up on the beach from a distant country I've never been to. Choked with water, the sand burning with the pain of living, starlight gathering to decide the time. Such an insignificant object, yet somehow drawing ethereal moments to it. I will know. Of course we exist beyond the stars. We found each other beyond the stars, after all. She would watch the stars stumbling down the dark streets, reflected in the waiting rain, cracking and breaking under harsh human footsteps. She told me once it looked like fireworks to her. I had to look up to see them. On the other side of the stars, I would watch them stumbling through the sky, trying to find their way home. In my eyes, the galaxy was full of wandering souls. I was always looking up, trying to find myself in that vast galaxy. After so many missed chances, for how could anything ever go so right for me so easily, our eyes met for a moment. Just four more insignificant shimmering stars, yet somehow the most significant of them all. Somehow, in that brief moment, our heartbeats collided, and for that brief moment, the laws of gravity shattered, allowing me to reach her. They brought me to her.