By Lataurus Black
The turbulence of life will eventually pass, and no storm will last forever. These are the words we tell ourselves as the light from the sky flashes before our eyes.
The smell of cocoa butter roses lives in the wind. No matter how much I try to hold on to the scent, it is fleeting between my fingers.
As the storm rages, my mind awakens. I see a face I have never seen before; the wind is still, and my heart knows her. I have loved her, not here but on Mars, Jupiter, and the Moon.
She’s calling me, pulling my eyes to the sky and relaxing my inner thoughts as the wind touches my bones.
Her voice, a soft echo in my mind, speaks without sound: “Look beyond what you see. Feel with your heart, not your eyes.”
I close my eyes, surrendering to her words, feeling a calm wash over me.
Without touch, she has unlocked different versions of different worlds, living under the layers of doubt on my outer surface.
“You search for signs,” she murmurs, her thoughts entangling with mine, “but signs are not in the stars or the ground. They are within us, where no telescope or microscope can reach.”
I hear her, but the doubt lingers. “How do I find these signs?” I ask, feeling the discomfort in my chest.
“By trusting the silence,” she replies, her voice a whisper carried by the wind. “By listening to the spaces between your breaths.”
The pain feels endless on calm morning days, allowing the noise from the outside to enter our minds and fill us with the doubt that causes withdrawal in our bodies.
I open my eyes to fill my mind with the light she shines from the sky, and suddenly, my heart can breathe the air of fresh cocoa butter roses as if she is piecing together the broken puzzle of my love that has been missing.
“Breathe with me,” she urges gently, “feel each piece fall into place.”
As she pulls my eyes to the sky, I feel drawn deeper into a vision.
The sky above transforms, revealing the stars I once saw from other worlds. Stars that I have forgotten and freshwaters I have once tasted on planets I have once walked, on desert sands under many moons and suns.
In the quiet of this vision, I sense the interconnectedness of all things—the planets, the storms, the moments of stillness.
“Can you see?” she asks, her voice calm and boundless. “We have been here before. Every journey leads us back to this moment.”
She lives inside me, even here, while I look up to the sky, realizing that she has been with me in every incarnation, every journey, every cycle of life.
And with this realization, her face appears.
“You remember now,” she says softly. “You always knew.”
She takes my hand without words, places them on her canvas, and begins to paint. My eyes are still open, watching her brush stroke.
The softness of her stroke allows my mind to wander into a dream.
How long has it been since you have dreamed?
The first time I heard her voice, her lips never moved. The brush spoke for her, and the cocoa butter smell filled my nose as she stood close my heart racing.
“Feel it,” she whispers, “love that is unbroken.”
She draws a circle, not just any circle, but the evolution of life.
As the brush moves, the sun takes shape on the canvas, not just any sun, but a sun with a heart at its center.
Each ray seems to reach out, touching every part of the open meadow, revealing things hidden in the shadows.
“Every ray is a path,” she explains, “ while leading me through her shadows and into her light.”
She was showing me her past pain with words spoken into her heart by those who had never understood or touched the pieces of her puzzle. Even as she falls from the sky like an angel with broken wings, she lands with a fractured foot, only to be nourished by hands that do not know how to heal a broken heart.
“But I am whole,” she asserts, “even in the falling, even in the breaking.”
So, she sat with her hands covering her heart, giving her dreams to the stars, unlocking different worlds inside herself.
Is that how she found me? I question myself.
As I feel warmth spreading from her painting to my chest, a warmth that unlocks my own suppressed memories and fears.
It was as if the thunder in the clouds was my heart screaming, and as the rain began to pour, it was the songs of my psalms.
“Listen,” she says softly, “the rain is your song. It speaks of longing, of love that transcends time.”
If anyone closes their eyes and points their nose to the sky, they can hear your notes playing in the stars.
“And when I found you,” she continues, “I knew the lightning flashes were our moments together, in different forms, in different times.”
Her heart allowed her to see—two stars orbiting each other, two waves in a distant ocean, always drawn to one another by an unseen force.
A single tear falls from my eye as she places her brush down. Suddenly, the canvas becomes a mirror.
I see myself not as who I am now but as I were across many lifetimes—an old soul searching for her.
The forgotten face is now clear. As I look down to see my reflection in the rain’s waters, I have just witnessed the moments my heart puzzle was together and the moments it was apart.
In each lifetime I have lived, I have carried a lesson I needed to learn to put us back together and finally become one.
Her painting is the key to understanding all those past selves and their purpose.
“Do you see?” she asks, her voice filled with quiet strength. “Every piece, every lifetime, has brought us here.”
The world felt as if gravity had come to a standstill; she appeared, coming in and out of the world.
Her presence is no longer as strong as before; her body weakens with each passing moment. Uncertain of how much time remains, I reach out to touch the canvas, and as I do, I feel her hand on my heart, steadying my breath and grounding me in this moment, here and now.
“Hold on,” she whispers, “I am with you.”
I gently move her other hand away from her chest, revealing the last missing piece of her puzzle—a shape that matches my right hand.
Her eyes remain closed; the moon grows brighter, the rain slows as if even the wind is holding its breath, and other worlds are watching.
I place my hand slowly over her heart, filling the void and completing the puzzle.
For the first time, her eyes are open, and her body rests in my arms.
The feeling of warmth surges, and light courses through her as if our souls are merging into one.
The rain begins to fall again, but this time, it feels different—gentle, nourishing, like a baptism from the universe itself.
We both stand, letting the rain wash over us, cleansing away the pain, the doubt, and the fear.
“Do you feel it?” she asks, not with her lips but with her presence, her very essence. “This moment is ours. It always has been.”
I close my eyes, feeling the truth of her words, a connection that transcends this life, this body.
“A rose,” she continues, “even when the petals fall on winter nights, still holds its beauty. Our passion blooms everywhere, in every world we’ve ever touched.”
I nod, feeling the depth of her understanding, the ancient knowledge she carries in her soul.
My quiet yet persistent voice responds aloud, “Even on Mars, Jupiter, or the Moon… we will always find each other.”
She smiles, a soft light in her eyes, and I feel a surge of warmth as if our souls have finally aligned, merging into one.
Cocoa butter 🌹
