Chapter Text
Good Night, Moon
Good Morning, Sorrow
My first love belonged to the moon.
It sounds odd and maybe a bit dramatic, but it’s the truth. You can tease me about being an edgy idiot all you want (not that Pidge hasn’t already), but it won’t change what happened.
It started as something so simple I can hardly recall the circumstances. My legs were crossed on the ABC printed carpet of the kindergarten, knees bumping with overly excited children. I had always been surrounded by children my age, lonely but never alone. None of their shrieks and giggles caught my attention; instead, I would gaze at the wall as if I could look right through it.
My world was my own, and I didn’t need anybody in it. I don’t think I had imaginary friends, just an isolated mind. There was a heavy static in my head; continually pressing the shapes and ideas deep into my throat before killing them soundly. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to befriend others or speak my mind, it was that my thoughts were too thick to escape. It was an odd one-sided understanding that told me I would be lied to, and I was expected to lie in return. I would lie unthinkingly about simple things like laughter, feelings, and God.
I settled into silence for the most part besides pretending to do the things adults expected me to do. It was painless to pretend I believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Adults would croon and pat my head affectionately when I used a word incorrectly. I at least knew what they wanted and could manage it well enough. That being said, I never understood the other children; I was so enrapt in my own thoughts I couldn’t communicate or display them. Instead, I finger painted sunflowers and pretended I was somebody else. Usually, somebody who didn’t miss my dad.
It’s hard to say what exactly pulled me out of the endless galaxies of my mind in that moment. I sometimes wonder if it was something plain, like the particularly enthusiastic bump from the boisterous girl next to me. In a deeper part of me though; I know it was something of a cosmic curiosity that cleared my vision to the illustrated book in the teacher’s hands.
For a lack of better words it was a coincidence. The kind of coincidence that could only be described as fate.
“The man on the moon,” she had said, cooing patronizingly at the children around me. They made interested sounds and some of them crawled toward the front of the reading mat for a better view.
My whole body was still, attention held in the real world for record time as I absorbed the painted image of the celestial body. Of course I knew there wasn’t a man on the moon. This was another story, another fairytale I was expected to believe. As she read the book aloud, it became clear this was just a legend to give context to the ancient craters on the moon’s surface.
“Now, is there really a man on the moon?” she cooed at the children in question.
“Noooooooo,” a chorus of replies rang out, accentuated by giggles.
“No it’s just a story, isn’t it?”
She didn’t expect us to believe it. She didn’t want me to lie about it.
An adult was being honest, and for the first time I wanted to believe.
I wanted this man to be real. What kind of person would he be? I wanted to talk to him about everything. I wanted to ask if he was lonely. I wondered if he felt like I did, surrounded by stars but still isolated in his orbit. I remembered how vast and dark space was in encyclopedias, and my heart ached for his solitude.
I wanted to believe.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t believe in the man on the moon. I didn’t believe at night as I snuck past the other boys in the orphanage to the large window and pressed my cheeks to the glass. I knew better as I opened the window and stared up at him in awe. I understood it was impossible even as my mouth opened and I asked him what it was like in the sky.
I never did believe, even as I spoke to him and became bolder month after month. I moved from the window, to the boulder outside, to the top of a tree, to the roof of the orphanage. I kept coming back because it was the only time I felt honest. The only time my thoughts could formulate words that left my body.
I didn’t believe in the man on the moon, but that had never stopped me from pretending before. So pretending is exactly what I did.
I had lived a thousand imaginary lifetimes, and the moon was the only thing that broke through the static. I spoke to him every night, even if it was only a few words. A quick ‘hi,’ or ‘goodnight,’ was enough to make me feel a little less isolated.
When he was full, I sat on the roof for a lengthy conversation which was usually just confused ramblings about the other children at school. I didn’t realize I was being bullied at the time. My own reality was too thick for their intentions to reach, but I still told the moon.
On my 9th birthday I told him about the day my dad left. That was the first time I cried while I spoke to him.
It wasn’t the last.
On the nights of the new moon, I slipped a hastily written note onto the windowsill for him and went to sleep. It was pointless, but it grounded me in reality with a simple ‘I miss you,' or ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’. When I was 10, the notes began to disappear from the windowsill.
Somewhere in the fading static I had concluded one of the other boys had noticed my ritual and made a game of taking them. I never considered it long enough to understand any potential consequences of not stopping. Occasionally I would glance through a wastebasket or two, but I could never find where they ended up each month.
I didn’t think much of it until I turned 11. Hope lost for adoption, and too old for my chances to get any higher: the orphanage finally handed me off to a foster family.
Disconnected as ever; I was vaguely aware that the average foster home stay lasted less than two years. There was no reason for me to change anything, so I didn’t.
Mr. and Mrs. Welch were nice enough; the kind of couple who had dessert after dinner and wrote love letters back and forth with the magnetic words on the fridge. There was always ambient music in the family room and I occasionally had the privilege of turning over or rewinding the old fashioned cassette tapes.
The protective isolation in my mind had worn down enough for me to realize I sort of liked them. I liked that place better than the noisy bedrooms of the orphanage. I liked the way Annabelle Welch would kiss the top of her husband’s head when he sat in his favorite armchair. I felt something gentle tug at my heart when Jason would ruffle my hair in passing. I even smiled at the way Annabelle would hum a familiar tune over her work at the stove. Despite knowing it was temporary I found my mind drifting into reality and holding it for much longer than was necessary or normal.
It was long enough for me to realize the Welch’s birth son greatly disliked me. Michael was his name, and he wasn’t home often. He liked glaring, biting his lips and nails, then scratching at the paint on the windowsill.
“Keith, huh? That’s a dumb name,” he scoffed, leaning against the wall of the bedroom. He d ressed mostly in black and was barely 14 , sharp gaze enough to make me understand he’d waited to speak his mind until we were alone.
I didn’t answer.
“You know you don’t belong here, right?” he continued, leaning forward in hopes of catching a reaction. “I’d bet anything my parents just wanted to force me into some responsibility with a kid brother. They think pulling this shit will make me act the way they want me to. Don't get too comfortable, cause you’ll be gone soon as they get their plan isn’t working.”
He was an angry person, I could tell. I’d known angry people before, I had been an angry person too. Mournful when my screaming was a week old and I realized I would remain alone in my father’s empty space. Empty except for me. Perplexed when strangers carried me from a month abandoned home and asked me what I had been eating. Resentful when I realized he wasn’t dead, just better off without me.
I had been vaguely aware of my different emotions before hiding from them in the safe seclusion of my mind all those years ago. Anger, grief, fear. My escape from these emotions was to pretend they didn’t exist in the recesses of my imagination. Other children at the orphanage had these same emotions and dealt with them a bit less privately. I understood this so I wasn’t afraid of Michael.
Maybe I should have been.
He was peeling eggshell colored paint from the windowsill during the second new moon I spent in his home.
I’d figured he had taken the first note, so I didn’t bother waiting until he looked away to slide the new letter onto the same surface he’d been scratching.
He eyed me warily, but in my hazy mind I didn’t understand the desire to hurt people. I didn’t think he’d bother touching it, so I was a bit surprised when he plucked the note from the sill and unfolded it.
“Wait-” I managed before his mouth quirked into something malicious.
“What's this supposed to be? A love letter?” his dark gaze flicked at me from beneath chestnut colored bangs.
I shook my head.
He rolled his eyes. “Sure seems that way,” he trailed off as he finished reading the note, then scoffed as he folded it back up. I held my hand out for the note but he didn’t return it. “Who did you write it for, huh?”
I leaned forward to take it back, but he moved it out of my reach. My eye twitched. “Give it back.”
He grinned at that, seemingly pleased to have gotten a response with more emotional depth than usual. “Nope,” he cooed, knowing he had the advantage in both strength and height. “Not until you answer.”
“It’s for Him,” was all I could manage, grabbing for his wrist.
“Him?” Michael sneered. “You’re writing love letters to a guy?”
“It’s not a love letter,” I insisted. The back of my mind was flooding with static in protest to acknowledging an unpleasant reality for too long. Something akin to nausea touched the back of my throat. “It’s just a note.”
“A note for who?” Michael's hand pushed me away, palm on my chest. “Tell me and I’ll give it back.”
“The man on the moon,” I said honestly before holding out my hand for the promised letter.
Michael stared at me with an expression that spoke of disbelief, and then he let out a sound that made me cringe. He was laughing. “The moon?” He stood from his bed, holding the note toward the window. “You write to the moon? Damn, I knew you were a freak but this-”
My body was tense now. “Just give me the note. It’s none of your business.”
“You know the man on the moon is a story, right? The moon isn’t a person, it can’t talk to you or read your stupid notes.”
“I know that!” My volume made me jolt, surprising myself.
“Then why are you doing something so pointless?”
“It’s not pointless!”
“Yes it is. Is that what you keep doing at the window? You’re actually crazy, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.”
“Right, just stupid. Let me tell you something, kid.” He reached toward me and I didn’t flinch away in time to avoid him grabbing a fistful of my bangs. I yelped as he yanked me forward. “This world sucks and it wants everybody to eat shit. Your fairy tale moon man isn’t real and even if he was he wouldn't give a damn about you. Clearly nobody does, or else you wouldn’t be here.”
He was talking about my dad, and a surge of pain overtook my chest. My skin felt too tight for my bones and suddenly I understood wanting to hurt people.
Michael shoved me backward and my legs hit the bed across from his. “The sooner you learn that, the better.” He punctuated the sentence with a loud rip of paper.
Everything inside me pulsed with a type of heat I’d never felt before. My fists balled as I called “Stop it!”
Another yank of the note and it was in pieces, Michael's eyes fixed on mine as he let a few scraps flutter to the carpet.
I recognized the hazy retreat of my ability to stay present. The static grew louder with every laceration of paper. And then it stopped.
Reality greeted me with Michael on the floor, slumped against his bed. His eyes were wide and his fingers tenderly brushed the bridge of his nose. My fist ached, and something unpleasant seared through my body before settling on the joint of my thumb. I recalled a loud crack.
Michael was on me in seconds, spitting profanities and landing much more experienced punches than mine had been. The blunt pain yanked me repeatedly from the safety of static as Michael's parents noisily clamored up the stairwell.
We were both grounded, and Mr. Welch managed to clear some space in the storage room for a cot until the family could sort out what to do with the situation. Surrounded by a thick blanket and towers of canned peaches; I settled back into the recesses of my mind. Unwittingly, I dragged Michael's words with me. Nobody cares, you wouldn’t be here if they did.
I decided not to tell the Welch’s about my broken thumb.
I skipped an entire moon cycle before I decided to try again. I had been prepared to sneak through the window in Annabelle and Jason’s room rather than confront Michael in his own space.
As it turned out though, he came home late and we entered the kitchen at the same time. He scowled at me and I shut down instantly. Through my haze I registered why are you still here? And intense heat among other muddled words.
That was the first time I saw Him.
Barely lucid and hands held hostage atop the stove, I remember the gentle glow through the window. The backyard was bathed in moonlight and there he stood, palms pressed over his mouth and eyes wide. His hair was white, and eyes dark as the night sky. Those eyes pulsed with an old soul even as tears streamed down his boyish face, twinkling as if each one gave birth to a star. Ethereal may have come to mind if I’d known what it meant at the time , or if I had been able to think at all before the real world went black as the new moon.
I was returned to the orphanage the next morning for my own safety. The box checked on the paperwork read that I ‘ didn’t get along ’ with the Welch’s son. Jason whispered “we’re so sorry Keith,” as he squeezed me tightly between he and his wife. I knew they meant it as tears fell from Annabelle’s cheeks to the fresh burns on my palms.
I wasn’t sure what happened to Michael after that , but I didn’t see him after my appointment with the doctor. The boiled flesh would heal, the thumb nearly had already. It was crooked but it would do.
I started wearing gloves, and stopped writing letters to the moon.
The consequences of my fight with Michael made me much more aware of the world around me. I was able to retreat into my mind less often, and when I did it was painfully brief. The world was unthinkably real, and I was aching with what it took to live in it.
My ramblings toward the moon became less frequent, only meeting him on the full by the time I was 6 foster families and 15 years old. Our long therapeutic soliloquies turned toward confused and angry rantings. I growled about the unfairness of life and moaned over the tightness of my chest. Bitterness settled on my tongue as I yanked shingles from the roof of my temporary home.
I didn’t have to pretend to not miss my dad anymore because now I just hated him. I had fallen into reality long enough for grief to mutilate my memories and heart. Its scabs tried their best but my persistent anger constantly prodded at them until I released fresh clots of muddled blood and sentiment.
Sometimes I would yell or kick at the chimney, but mostly I would cry, then pretend that I hadn’t.
It was on nights like those I’d see Him. The moonlight falling on dusty crags of my body, swollen eyes and lips red toward the sky; a flicker in the corner of my eye.
His glow was gentle, and his face was somber. I usually only caught a glimpse of his white robes under the full moon before blinking Him into oblivion. Never quite sure I’d seen Him at all --but far from ready to admit I was crazy-- I kept coming back.
When I finally caused a leak after tearing away too much of the roof, I turned 15 years and 7 foster families old.
I started biting my nails, and I stopped talking to the moon.
Fortunately, I was nothing if not a creature of habit. My monthly escapes to the rooftop didn’t stop upon my final return to the orphanage, but they became quieter. My shouts and sobs stilled into a muted gaze toward the sky. He always stared back at me to share my silence, and as I drifted to sleep I dreamt of supple fingers brushing through my bangs.
At one friend and 16 years old, I got a new roommate.
Lotor had been through more families than I had, and more fights than a heavyweight champ. One year my senior, and saddled with a permanent scowl ; he made me nervous at first. A few times when I glanced toward him I would recall the face of a french bulldog that insistently slept on top of me two families ago. Lotor smelt better than Gracie had though.
Despite his initial unpleasant demeanor, he didn’t treat me badly. More than kind he was protective, liking me well enough to unleash hell on whoever told me I needed to cut my hair or take off my gloves. Both of us expected to be in the orphanage for the rest of our non-adult lives, so we attended the same high school. He would sometimes toss me his school-issued carton of chocolate milk and ruffle my hair as he muttered ‘shaggy’ . I liked it too much to comment on his hypocrisy concerning who was allowed to criticize my hairstyle.
He once yelled at the principal for trying to suspend me while I nursed a black eye. Later I told him I had thrown the first punch, and all I got in return was a raised eyebrow and an “I know.”
He joined me on the roof for the next full moon, and I considered asking him if he could also see the ghostly figure out of the corner of his eyes. I waited for the figure to appear, but it never did.
On Lotor’s third consecutive rooftop visit with me, I no longer felt fingers in my hair or breath on my back.
It was when Lotor punched a senior in the gut and walked away with his arms around Pidge and me that I realized I’d turned 16 years and 2 friends old.
Lotor and I fell into a steady routine. I would come back from Pidge’s house around 6:00 for a ‘nutritious state regulated dinner’, and Lotor would choose the music while I finished homework. I’d read some of the books he had taken care to collect, and he would point to passages while muttering about the intricacies of Shakespeare and poetry.
After the call for lights out, I would braid his long hair and listen to him talk. He tried mine a few times too but he usually ended up complaining about how coarse and thick it was. If he felt determined, he managed pigtail braids, then chuckled saying I looked like a messy farmgirl.
Laying in our beds, we would murmur back and forth until one of us fell asleep (usually me). One night, I awoke again, groggy in my realization that Lotor was still talking.
“You and me; we’re little more than dogs. People might take pity on us every now and again, but when we’re hard to house-train they realize their mistake and we’re put back on the street or locked in a kennel.” I gulped, unsure if he knew I was awake. “Humans are more merciful to dogs though. When one of them bites, growls, or gets hurt, they get euthanized. They can’t put us out of our misery like that, so instead they wait for us to do it ourselves.”
I couldn’t breathe for a long time, but when I did manage a gasp, he looked at me across the room. I couldn’t make out his expression in the dark. “Do you-” I began, but couldn’t find the right words. “Do you want to die, Lotor?”
“Yes.” He didn’t miss a beat. “Nobody wants us, Keith. Why would we want us either?”
I was quiet for a long time before my wounded heart finally scabbed over, and I nodded in agreement. “Why are we still here then?”
He flashed a smile at me. “Because we’re stubborn.”
I smiled back, but my chest still ached. The heavy bitterness in my mouth turned to something hollow, and I accepted it with open arms.
Lotor turned 18 a month before his graduation. His lack of effort met with his natural intelligence landed him in a cap and gown at the end of the school year. Our social workers seemed surprised, and I scoffed at their obvious lack of understanding him. Though I had no gift to give him at graduation, he grinned at me and ruffled my hair with a final mutter of ‘shaggy’. He slung his arms around Pidge and I, resting his chin on our shoulders to whisper; “take care of each other,” before pulling away. He playfully punched Pidge’s arm and grinned. “Especially you. Keep him out of trouble, understand?”
“Like you’re one to talk,” she had replied, matching his grin and yanking on his long braid in return.
I had braided his hair that morning, careful to create a pattern with the shocking white streak that grew on the back of his neck. He had called it my finest work and I had shoved him off of the toilet seat. He laughed over the loud clatter of our shampoo bottles when he hit the wall of our cramped shower stall.
That night, I helped him pack up his belongings. It didn’t take a long time, consisting mostly of clothing and old books. We spent the rest of the night on the roof, sipping our way through six boxes of Capri Sun and exchanging thoughts until the moonset. Our garbage was stuffed into flavor coordinated cardboard boxes while I watched the sky brighten and listened to Lotor recite lines from Hamlet. Occasionally he would pause dramatically on a page turn and I couldn’t help the grin that twitched it’s way onto my lips.
Just before the first rays of sunlight could peek over the mountains, his purple flashlight was tucked under his chin uselessly and the pages of the play were resting against his chest. His eyes were closed as he calmly recited soliloquies he knew by heart.
“
And we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?”
“Lotor?”
“Yes, Keith?”
“Will I get to see you again?” My voice shook just slightly, and I stilled in an effort to steady myself. As the sun rose I had realized the suffocating magnitude of somebody leaving me again. For a moment I didn’t know if I could take it.
Lotor opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows to cast a look at me. When our eyes met I looked away, gut clenching around long ignored anxieties.
He took the flashlight in hand and turned it off with an abrupt click. I could still feel his gaze on me, burning into my skin like he could find every quiet thought hidden inside of the long dead static. “I’m not abandoning you, Keith.” He said it so firmly I nearly forgot I’d asked a question to begin with. “Have you been assuming that this whole time?”
“Do you promise?” I asked breathlessly, ignoring his question.
He sighed, closing the book with a soft thump before putting it aside with the flashlight. He accidentally kicked an empty Capri Sun as he made his way over to me and I watched it’s crinkled form slide down the slope of the roof. Lotor put an arm around my shoulders and bumped my knees with his own. “I promise.”
My shoulders shook and my body convulsed inward, hiding fresh sobs in my knees. It had been a long time since I cried that hard, but Lotor just hummed and rubbed between my shoulderblades, fingers occasionally pulling through the frayed hairs on the back of my neck.
“ Soft you now, the fair Ophelia, ” he muttered into my hair “ in thy orisons be all my sins remembered. ”
Lotor left me an empty bed accompanied by an empty notebook and a ball point pen.
I started writing poetry, and I forgot about the moon.
The notebook became a permanent fixture in my backpack and I buried myself in it whenever my mind began to wander through senior year. I made it a goal to avoid free time, so schoolwork became a staple alarmingly quick. Pidge would squint suspiciously at me, but she never said anything about it or the permanent ink smudges on my gloves and knuckles.
I’m still not entirely sure of how Pidge and Lotor convinced me to go to college. Considering my introduction to the topic had been Pidge dumping a pile of brochures into my lap and compiling data on charity scholarships for orphans with my average GPA, it could have gone a lot worse. I’m glad they convinced me though. In retrospect; I’m not sure if I would have been able to handle watching Pidge leave without me.
The rest of senior year went by in a blur, and with a promise from Lotor that he would visit me after graduation I managed to hold myself together. Besides that, it was a little difficult to pack up and leave my old bedroom; Lotor’s bed having remained empty through my final year of high school.
It surprised me how easily I left the building, my social worker, and the town in which our paths had collided.
Pidge and I managed to find a one bedroom apartment within walking distance of campus. The whole place was barely bigger than the space I had shared with Lotor at the orphanage. Pidge bemoaned the attic-like quality of the low vaulted ceilings, kitchen too cramped to fit anything bigger than a mini-fridge and minimal counter space. The floor creaked if you stepped wrong, but the previous tenants had left a porch swing on the balcony and that was really the only part I cared about.
I would spend hours on that swing, sun moving across the sky as I studied or wrote new poems. When the sun set, I may have slept out there if not for being eaten alive by mosquitos the first time I tried it.
Rather than try to squeeze two beds into the cramped bedroom; I elected to sleep on the couch. I liked it that way. There was something vaguely comforting about the moonlight spilling onto me from the rickety screen door.
Pidge slept on a twin sized air mattress that took up the bulk of the bedroom floor, usually cluttered with different devices she had been tinkering with. On occasion I would join her, squeezing myself between her curled form and the legs of one of her desks. I sometimes worried I’d bump it in the night and die heroically to a heavy computer, but if Pidge needed somebody nearby I would never turn her down.
I was shoveling mint chocolate chip ice cream into my mouth when I finally got the nerve to sign up for a poetry class second semester.
“You know, being in a poetry class means you’ll actually have to let people read your poetry,” Pidge said around a mouthful of double fudge.
“I know that,” I shot back, shoving another spoonful into my mouth. “I don’t have to use the stuff in my notebook for this class I can just write extra things I’m fine with sharing.”
She lifted an eyebrow at me. “Does that mean I’ll actually get to read these ones?”
“No.”
She put her hands in the air. “Alright, alright. Don’t get your boxers in a twist.”
I huffed and my finger hovered over the track pad to remove the class from my schedule. Pidge whacked my hand with her spoon.
“Ow! Pidge!” I pulled my hand to my mouth, shaking out the pain and sucking at the knuckle she had smacked. My glove tasted like double fudge ice cream. I glared at her and she glared back, snatching her computer from my lap. “What’s your problem?” I grumbled against the ridge of my hand.
“What are the other classes you’re signing up for?” she asked me with a level voice.
“Just let me do it myself.”
“No. You’ll chicken out of your poetry class if I let you think about it too long” she huffed, pulling herself toward the edge of the couch and slouching over the keyboard.
“You were the one who said I-”
“I was pointing it out that doesn’t mean I wanted you to quit. Besides, it’s my computer. If you really want to drop out you can do it at the library, but you’re not going to do it because you’re embarrassed while I’m over your shoulder.” She glared at me over the edge of the laptop. “Now tell me what other classes you want for next semester.”
I took in a breath to protest, but then I realized I had nothing to say.
I handed her my notes for the next semester.
As it turned out, my poetry sucked. This didn’t come as a surprise seeing as I’d only started a year prior, but it really sucked. The poetry forms I had only just began to explore were already being utilized and built upon by other students.
In stark contrast to the lectures I’d grown accustomed to, my poetry class was an intimate group of 10 sitting in a half-circle. Everybody knew my face and name. Everybody could see me from their seat, and my expressions as they took turns interpreting and criticizing my first poem.
I decided I didn’t like workshop days, even if they were helpful from an educational perspective. Each student read their poem aloud, and that was followed by a class discussion in which the poet had to remain silent. My leg bounced uncontrollably up and down as my classmates discussed why I had chosen a corpse as the main figure in a poem that was supposed to represent my childhood. I gritted my teeth through it though, determined to actually learn something beyond the terminology Professor Coran threw out on a regular basis.
It was midway through the semester when I remembered the moon.
I stood behind my desk, printed copy of my most recent poem in hand. The assignment had been to write a poem from the point of view of something or someone other than ourselves. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but I had chosen Ipomea Alba. The Moon Flower.
I hadn’t chosen it for a sentimental reason, rather I was intrigued that it had been used to make nightmare inducing poisons and only opened at night. As I read it aloud to the class though, I realized what I had done.
I had written a love poem.
I hadn’t written just any love poem either. I had written a love poem to the man on the moon.
The room was quiet as my peers scribbled notes on their copies and I dropped back into my seat, preparing to silently absorb my critique. I didn’t absorb much.
“It’s interesting that Keith chose to use male pronouns for the moon-”
“Not necessarily. The moon is typically depicted as female in artsy western culture but the ‘man on the moon’ is a widely accepted term or idea.”
“True, but I think what is more interesting is how he’s spread the words out on the page as if the text is the vines of the Ipomea--”
Their words were a blur. I was suddenly flooded with memories of my first friend; my first love.
It had been a coping mechanism and I understood that, but I couldn’t help scratching at my papers with a nostalgic smile as I recalled talking for hours to the man on the moon. I usually didn’t like thinking about my childhood, but something about this particular memory made me feel warm. I remembered my rituals on each full and new moon and found myself wondering if he was waxing or waning right now. I used to always know.
“Keith?”
My head snapped up and I stared at professor Coran for a moment before my eyes glanced over my classmates. They were all looking at me, and my heartbeat sped through my sudden nervousness .
“Y-yes?”
“Are you getting all this down?”
I clutched my pencil and began to scribble notes. “Yeah, sorry those first few comments got me thinking and then I didn’t stop.”
The last time reality had slipped from me so quickly was as Michael had pressed my hands to the lit gas stovetop, a boy with stars for tears watching outside the window . My gloves suddenly felt itchy as I scribbled the comments onto the back of my poem.
As it turned out; the moon was waning right now.
I was still able to focus and function, but I found my mind wandering back in time. In retrospect, I really had relied on the moon back then. It was a fantasy I chose to entertain because I needed it to get by. Part of me was embarrassed and the other part was grateful.
All of me wondered how I had possibly forgotten.
I didn’t start talking to the moon again or spending my nights on the balcony, just idly recalling how precious it had been to me once. The recalling was fond enough that when the new moon came around I folded the poem I had written into a neat square, and left it on the railing of the balcony beneath a small round stone.
There was something sentimental about it; the touching conclusion to my love affair with the moon. A final note and a determination to look forward to the real world from now on.
My mind wandered to my honest childhood rather than the lives I had created for my younger self. Lotor tousling my hair, long talks at midnight, Pidge nudging my ribs with a teasing grin, imaginary fingers stroking my hair, and Hamlet. I wondered briefly what path I would take from here on out.
To die — to sleep.
To sleep — perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
It was hardly the conclusion though. In fact it was only the beginning.
In the morning the poem was gone.
“Pidge!” I growled as I threw open the door to our bedroom. “Not funny. Give it back, you know I don’t like you reading my poetry!”
“Good fuck, Keith it is a Saturday and you will let me rest!”
I dropped onto my knees on the edge of the air mattress. Pidge yelped as the surface beneath her abruptly swelled. “Just tell me where you hid it.”
“Hid what ?” She growled, sitting upright.
“My poem. I left it on the balcony last night and-”
“I didn’t take it. Go back to sleep, you’re drunk,” she fell back onto her pillow, nearly causing me to lose my balance.
I hesitated. I didn’t think it had blown away since the stone didn’t appear disturbed , but it wasn’t impossible. “You promise you didn’t take it?”
“I promise that if you don’t let me sleep for at least another hour I’ll chop your dick off and make you play it like a kazoo.”
Woah.
Okay, time to leave Pidge alone.
I left quietly, but I was relatively sure she had told the truth. I knew Pidge pretty well and she wouldn’t have gotten that annoyed if she was guilty. In the heat of the moment I’d gotten a little out of hand.
I tried not to worry about what had turned out to be a very personal poem kicking around wherever it ended up. As it turned out though, I’d find out what happened to it quite soon.
A sliver of the moon began to wax into visibility on Sunday night, and I awoke to fingers carding through my bangs. Bleary eyes opening, I saw a man above me smiling, a folded paper held to his chest. He glowed dimly, almost translucent besides the faint light he gave off. A streak of bright silver light was carved across the bridge of his nose, as if escaping from inside him. Grey robes fell elegantly over his shoulders and his hair was black besides a small white tuft over his forehead.
I blinked slowly, expecting him to be gone when I opened my eyes again.
He was still there.
“Keith-”
I jolted and let out a yelp. “Fuck! Wha-”
“Keith it’s okay, it’s just me,” the man said, smiling as if we had known each other for years. I flinched, but didn’t stop him from putting a steady hand on my knee. I hadn’t expected him to feel so solid, the way I could almost look through him. I was partly scared, but mostly in awe.
He reached slowly for my hand, watching my face carefully to gauge my feelings on what he was doing. Cautiously, he began to peel back the thin material of my gloves enough to examine the scars there with a frown. “Does it still hurt?”
I shook my head dumbly. The once boiled and bloody flesh had left an intense scar, bumpy and tender in a soft magenta that tapered sloppily into the rest of my skin. His expression hid nothing, regret and something bitter yet gentle in every twitch of his cheeks. I watched him tentatively; understandably weary from more than my tendency to avoid showing people the scars. I didn’t pull away though, trembling softly under a familiar touch.
He glanced at me cautiously before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to my palm. I heard a pounding in my ears, suddenly dizzy as I watched his glow tingle through my fingertips. He hummed afterwards, pressing his lips together and nodding slowly as if he somehow better understood the pain behind the marred skin. His thick lashes fluttered for a moment and I saw liquid stars shining in his dark eyes. He was crying over my old wounds and my head began to pound wildly.
There was something unmistakable about the tears that had once slid down soft pallid cheeks outside of my first foster home. I recognized him, though he had obviously grown from the image of a thin boy I could recall. His jawline was sharpened to a firm squarish shape, and the glowing lacerations on his skin wandered toward his chest and hands. He had grown and I realized very suddenly he wasn’t just a memory, fingers unthinkingly real and brushing against my knuckles.
I trembled suddenly before yanking my hand away. “Do I...know you?” I finally asked, still in shock and unsure of myself.
The man straightened up, clearly surprised by my reaction. I could fully see him now, kneeling on the floor next to the sofa and seeming less solid where the moonlight couldn’t slip past shadows. “Oh. Then was this-” he tipped his gaze toward the folded paper he had left in his lap when he’d examined my scars. He lifted it slowly toward his chest. “Was this not for me?”
I trembled slightly before the silence pulled me to pluck the note from his hands. Part of me already knew but I still checked for the words on it.
I know the moonlight.
My eyes met his again, deep as the night sky and shining with something unspoken. “Did you...not want to see me again?” he asked hesitantly.
I gulped. “M-moon?”
He grinned so brightly I thought I may go blind. “Please, just call me Shiro.”
I was 19 years, two friends, and half a love old.
I started speaking to the moon again, and he spoke back.