𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗥𝗬: “Bury Me Six Feet Beneath Your Greatness” by Lara Marie De Leon

Published by: Rich Antonette Pescasiosa

Date Published: July 25, 2025

Time Published: 11:22 AM

Category: Prose

Theme: Admiring someone you think is so much better than you are.

How do you hold a star the sun shrinks in the face of?

She never asks this question loudly, though it burns her flesh as she keeps it inside. He is the star reincarnated—enters rooms like surprises, with a laugh that breaks open the sky and calls upon thunder in golden ribbons. Statues forget to be still in his presence; even the oldest stones covered in moss ache for the feeling of his love.

And when he enters, the world rearranges around his feet.

She watches as every law of nature moves to cradle his arrival. Gravity softens beneath his weight. Stillness becomes a melody in his hands. Her chest aches with the pressure of his love, so she retreats into the comfort of her own shadow.

She lets him shine where all can see, letting the world fool itself into thinking they are the first to discover his greatness. Never granting them the knowledge that she was the first to bow. That she witnessed the sun learn reverence.

The earth forgets how to carry him. Ceilings no longer cage his rise—they shout in admiration, screaming his name into the pockets of the sky. She stares as he rises beyond their reach, past where skin and sorrow belong. He has become someone with more to offer.

She, with legs devastatingly mortal, secured to the soft soil of yearning, dares not to cross into his sacred altitude. She lingers at the edge where light pours but cannot touch her feet. Though she is the first pilgrim to worship the altar of his becoming, she does not deem herself worthy. She does not ask for a wish granted; she knows it is not hers to hold.

The falcon, made of blades and bones, born to survive the thorns, falters when she feels the warmth of being held. For what’s a falcon to do when cradled like a hummingbird—fragile, adored? Her talons, developed for piercing, tremble at the thought of staining something so soft and alive.

So, before the hands of warmth can reach her flesh, before tenderness can soften the steel in her ribs, she flees. Shattering herself in the sharp edges of absence, naming it mercy. She leaves pieces of her love at the altar where gods ascend, and falcons never follow.

Because some creatures are cursed not to fly alongside stars, only there to watch them burn—silently, fiercely—from the shadows.