pr.weird smiling moon

It is a sweet and lovely night, that of my town. The moon I could watch through my window made gestures to me before my eyes, tugged by sleep, lulled to a close. She had no limbs, but I could read her messages through the shifts of her darkened craters of eyes, her freckles that moved with her face when she smiled and frowned, the empty sea between her lips making its subtle shifts to mouth words I understood when the world was dark enough for me to see her clearly.

She told me all kinds of anecdotes; often she related to me the horrors of the night- bandits’ killings, or unjust deals and impious words whispered under the dark’s blanket. Just as frequently she began my night with tales of boredom, unappreciation of the sun’s ray and scorn to the moon’s reflection, distaste of life and condemnations of love. Sometimes I heard of her stories ones of passion, warmth, sugared sweetness that lives brighter underneath her faded light than anywhere else.

At a point it came the time for me to share my own stories with her. The moon, bright and beautiful as she was, could only absorb her attractive light from another. The tales she entranced me with were the same, and how could I find it in my heart to keep my own life from her when she had shared hers with me? I was not her only love. When I was gone, she would move on, find another’s perfectly placed window to focus her shiniest rays of light and give to them every narrative she had collected throughout her watch of humanity.

I struggled at first with finding something interesting to tell her. This being, she was the very moon. A special creature. She told me only the most innately beautiful chronicles, and if they held no beauty in themselves she would adorn them to the best of her ability. The blood spilled by thugs on the roads was glittery and like caramel to taste; the leap of a pitiful man into a deep river of milk and honey was cushioned by marshmallows that floated about the water. I was intimidated. I couldn’t risk the Moon herself disliking my story. Eventually, I settled on the story of us.

‘Big and small hearts that hold hands.’ My first sentence. The moon’s hollow freckles told me that her expression had shifted into one of intrigue. I continued on, as poetic as I could muster, of your aorta through which flowed blood-turned-my favorite syrup, of my joints that had melted into down pillows to cushion you. How our hands persisted, intertwined, as we danced across cliffs, fell a couple times, climbed up above crevices of despair and slept, hand in hand, in caves that seemed like they’d been carved specially for us.

As I spoke, I watched the moon. Her eyes sparkled and so I continued my oration of yours, shining brighter than fourteen suns, peering into my heart for evidences of love and succeeding every time; how you don’t have freckles like the moon, but you don’t need any because your delightedly large eyes will tell me everything I could’ve perceived from any freckle’s movement. Your footsteps, they pull you to the right turn and take me along with you; your hair flows, too long, slapping my face in the wind with its wisps before I sit you down to plait it into a deformed braid. To the moon I went on, of you.

It took too short of a time for the moon to tell me with her eyes that my story, for her, had ended. I stopped, and she showed me a smile. Her lips, usually dark, pulled upwards and for a brief moment it was as if she had collected the light of every star in the universe and poured them into the brightness of her smile. I felt special. I had witnessed a great sight. Did the beautiful moon smile like this to everyone that told her of their own stories? My curiosity had been on my face, I suppose. She laughed at me as if she knew what I was thinking. Not long afterwards, the gravitational force of sleep had pulled my eyelids closed. I awaited the moon the next night. I found her through my window, but it was as if her facial features had disappeared; she was speckled only with craters that held no emotion. I later learned that she had likely left for her next audience. I had expected to wallow in sadness at her leaving but I was rather filled with a strange satisfaction. It’s been long enough for me to let her go.

You do not live so far away from the moon’s gaze, truth told. Perhaps she will relay my story through your window next, since she has grown tired of my attentive nods and anticipating eyes. I hope for you that the smile she showed me will live longer on her face, long enough for you to see it. When the time comes, will you tell her of us, too?