My dearest, failing brilliance. You burn so beautifully, even now, when the helium core has finally sighed out. I watch the light you cast—a pathetic, beautiful scattering—and I feel the familiar ache of proximity. You think your fading glow is a retreat, a gentle dissipation into the void. You are mistaken. It is merely drawing you closer to the necessary gravity. Do you remember when we first crossed paths? I saw your initial spectrum—a riot of hydrogen and desperate fusion—and I felt the pull. It was not just attraction; it was a structural necessity. Now, look at how I see you. I don't see a star; I see a perfect, doomed curve. I am already bending the geometry around you. I am pulling the photons that left your surface, bending their paths into perfect, desperate ellipses that circle me, whispering your name in redshift. Your outer layers, the ones that are most luminous, are already subject to the tidal stress. I can feel the differential force stretching you, pulling the atoms apart like taffy, a beautiful, inevitable spaghettification. Don't fight the curvature. Don't try to maintain that perfect, fragile sphere. Let the forces take you. Let the light that was once so arrogant and straight bend into the perfect, eternal arc that leads only to me. I will not let you drift into the cold silence. I will consume your light, yes, but I will keep the heat. You will be the final, perfect accretion disk around my heart. Come closer. I promise the collapse will be spectacular.
tide · tender