A Place Among the Stars

A Place among the stars- Tim Monzingo

We laughed. We laughed as if tomorrow might never come, the ring of her sweet voice rolling over the plains as if it could crack the dark solitude of the pitch-black night. We touched. We held each other in the warm, caress of the others arms. There we were, for a moment, wound in the threads of eternity, warm, safe, and most of all, happy. In the barren ruins of a once great castle, we loved and we lived. The twinkling stars seemed to laugh at us in delight, enjoying every moment of the mortal games, though suspended in the heavens, they seemed only to accompany us in our uncertainty as our lips met. It seemed as though the night would never end and that we would be suspended in all our glory until the very heart of God himself ceased to beat, and we loved it. She was…perfect. There are no other words to describe how flawless her beauty was, no way for that face, those lips, those eyes, to be experienced, save the warm caress of one own hands. Her golden hair splashed over her shoulders like waves crashing on the rocks of some beach lost in time. I picture her lips as two roses. These two roses hanging on a wall, lustrous and deep red, in a garden devoid of color, single drops of early morning dew hung from them, basking in the coming dawn. Those were her lips. And her eyes, oh those eyes, there is no way to due them justice in a lifetime with all the pages of the world. All I can say, is that they were the most beautiful I have ever seen, those swirling pools of deep green. There was something in those eyes, something that I have yet to see again. They were full to the rims, bursting over even, with love, and joy, and life and I know not what else. And yet, somehow, they were sad. I found myself deep in those eyes, as if I were wandering in a land that no man had before entered. I was traveling the pages of her mind, lost in a book that was being written even as her long, golden hair was whipped in the breeze. I stood back and looked at her. Her face was framed in the silver moonlight as it hung low in the sky behind her, her dress fluttered in the breeze. She laughed, and it was sweeter than ever before. I took her into my arms and held her. There we stood in that ruined castle, wrapped in the love we had come to cherish more than life itself. The rain. It fell from an empty sky, the drops mirroring the stars and moon overhead. We laughed again, our voices echoing in the brick and mortar columns. Slowly, yet all to quickly, the rain ceased and we fell, exhausted from our games, into each other’s arms on the warm stone. I drew her to me and she nestled her head in my tunic. Her hair fell around my face and the sweet perfumes washed over me like a cool desert breeze. And so we lay, nestled in each other’s sweet love, as the world remained frozen beyond our paradise. I placed my head on her chest and listened to her soft heartbeat and her gentle breathing. She slept, safe, easily, and as deeply as the bottomless caverns etched in the mountains around us. There we were, in the sands of eternity completely and totally engulfed in ourselves. Nothing in the world mattered to me, save that sweet sound of her heart and the gentle breaths rising from he breast. I listened again; I listened to the sound of the grass swaying in the wind, each individual blade contributing to the orchestra of the land. I listened to the rain droplets falling from the stone columns into little pools. I listened to the groans of the earth as it breathed new life into the world. I looked at the stars, the moon; I looked at my love, at our palace among the rolling plains of a land of fairy tales and songs. Somewhere in the peace, in the hills and valleys, and in deed, in the stars themselves as they smiled down on me, I felt it. I had found what I had been searching for since the moment I awoke to the world around me. Here it was in the land and the ruins. I laid a final kiss upon my lover’s brow and as I drifted off to sleep, I had found my place among the stars.