i wish i could know everything

the moon knows.

what i know would seem so different

if i’d seen it from her perspective.

truth is only seen from above the trees.

i wonder if truth haunts her

like it does me, or if she can sleep.

each night she impales

me like an icicle

that was once sage green.

nothing is as sage as the moon.

she sees breath

directed upwards, towards a yearning

for heaven’s pearly doors.

she hears cries directed

downwards, borne

from cynicism and disbelief

in all postmortem reveries. two ways

for the body to inhale

and to exhale. but only she knows

which is the true. i used to dream

of throwing a rope around her,

pulling her in, and taking her home.

that way, she could watch over me

closely and tell me

the secrets of the celestial gods.

an energy divine and feminine,

i hear her say “here, here”

when dark falls and i emerge

from the monotony of day, beckoned

into the ambiguity and possibility

of night. night—the only time

for a mind like mine to roam

the sky. she and i have a companionship

that extends across bodies,

one that depends

on meeting mutual needs.

she tells me when it is time

to leave, for she sees

truth from above the trees. i dance

beneath her so she has something

to illuminate. i watch her

so she has something to see.

i can count on her to never leave,

unlike he. it takes me years

to climb the tallest of trees,

but when i do, she is there

to comfort me—i am a fool

who took years to see

what she’d already believed.

he and i didn’t have a companionship,

though he certainly depended

on me, like a predator does it’s prey.

he kept secrets

from the moon, to whom i swore oaths.

the moon was in waxing gibbous

when he pulled over

his car next to the train tracks

and silently contemplated.

as he drove away, he slammed

his foot on the brakes and his fists

on the steering wheel. my vacant

eyes stared at him,

darting left and right—the only

movement in my lifeless body.

the moon whispered in my frigid ear

that he had made me

into a ghost. it was time to go.

i feel whole now without him,

but that whole is broken.

it’s broken in places

it doesn’t even know can crack.

i live like i’ve already died.

i live like im running out

of time. for five years, i was half

a person and he never

showed up enough to be

the other half.

those were the years

when the only “him” i ever

wanted to be my muse was you.

you said you loved me.

you said it under the moon.

you can lie to me.

you cannot lie to the moon.

the moon knows what i don’t know,

and continues to change

when i can’t. when she comes

full circle, she comes back new.

not so much improved, for

she is still the moon.

paralyzed am i,

a daughter of her morphology.

in her wake, i am no longer ghostly.

as she ushers in each new night,

i am impaled with the chance

to start new, too, but am never sage

enough to begin again. he changed me.

but instead, now i will allow her to,

because i envy

how she could change yet never stray

from her true form.

dear moon, i am ready.

i am ready to move on.