It’s too late for ladders, and anyway I prefer train tracks. I would rather cloud the moon and the stars. I would rather lose sight of the loneliness I once felt and the wishes I made. You look at the world through four-hole buttons. Up, down, left and right. You have never lost your balance. Everything makes sense. There’s a steadfast heart in your chest. But that’s never been my center of gravity. Hunger has always defined me. I was a love-starved child. My eyes glistened with stars and I devoured them. But the last monster kept growling and I grew to hate that noise. I strangled hope with my own two hands. I have to keep strangling it. So forgive me if I don’t take you up on the ladder you are offering me.
I grew up unmoored. Spinning in zero gravity till all I saw were stars and reality dropped out of my vocabulary. My mother was a free spirit and I grew up without a place in society. I don’t have to rotate that ladder 180 degrees, I don’t have to wrap it around the moon. I can recognize birdcages with my eyes closed. Your heart might be in the right place, but I have already had my world defined by somebody else. If it’s all the same to you, I would rather not owe you a debt of gratitude. I won’t sing for you. If you want to escape reality, use your own imagination.
I don’t know what it’s like to be put on a pedestal, but someone once put me on the moon and drew a wedge between my sister and me. In that person’s eyes, I was moonlight and my sister never measured up. I felt like mouse bait. Cheese crumbs. Dead light, waiting for the trap to snap. I wasn’t the one that put that comparison into words. I never meant to cut my sister’s respiratory pathway, but I couldn’t bring myself to be kind. I never asked my sister where the ladder came from, but I had a feeling that climbing it was her way of trying to please someone else. We hadn’t set our hearts on the same thing. She was looking for acknowledgement and I was just being myself. That’s why I don’t feel guilty for staying true to myself. What I lost was a stranger, anyway.
I’ve heard that the moon formed violently. There was a collision, and maybe that is why your hand holds no allure for me. I don’t want to hold it gently. My loneliness runs bone deep. I have no use for butterfly stitches. You won’t do. I need a string redder than blood. There are no answers in the stars, but I need something meaningful in my life. Childhood friendships are a matter of proximity, and I have already outgrown that phase of the moon. Light touches like yours have hollowed me out. You might be willing to settle for skin deep acquaintanceship or words on a screen, but I am not.
I read somewhere that lunar craters are the result of meteorite impacts, but I am not the type of person that believes everything they read. Before I learned to write, I used to dream of catnapping on the moon. I wanted to knead a place for myself, like cats are wont to do. A crater where I could retain my childlike innocence. I have always recoiled from city lights. To this day I still believe that monsters are better left unseen. But light pollution is a thing. The pencil I learned to write with was streetlight yellow and I took it as a sign. People ruin everything they touch. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that to that milky white moon. I stopped dreaming and looked for contentment somewhere else. Luckily for me, paper has already been beaten to a pulp. Writing became my escape. And I became the type of person that would rather add insult to injury.
I like butterflies. Pawing at them and watching them flutter like musical notes on a staff. I hate Noise. It spoils my dreams. My ears perk up and drag me down to Hell. Way back when, I buried myself in headphones. I cat-scratched the sky, but that Noise still drowned everything out. Moonlight washed a thousand dead butterflies ashore. And I realized that I couldn’t keep being a cat scared of water. A part of me will always miss music. But silence is the only place where I can rest in peace, and I don’t regret swimming to the Moon.
I wish I didn’t know my heart, but I do. I can’t pretend I’m a cat. I used to envy them their detachment. I wanted to cut all ties and just live my life. The Moon free from the Earth. But that’s not where my happiness lies. The word my electrocardiogram spells in cursive is devotion. I would say that I need to take root in somebody else, but I’m a giver. Moonlight soothes. I know it’s bittersweet, but I can’t go against my heart’s grain.
I’m a cat that has turned its back on the world. Seeing in the dark is a curse. There’s no fighting human nature, and I can’t breathe in a place where kindness doesn’t outweigh cruelty. I know who indifference sides with, and that is too much gravity for me. The Moon is my last hope. There is a modicum of reassurance in things that go like clockwork. Even if it’s a lie and the Moon treats me like a child. In order for my lungs to work, I need to believe that, at the very least, light and dark balance out.
What do you want me to say? I have no thoughts on the Moon. It’s just a piece of rock. Whether it smiles or frowns, the Moon doesn’t have any impact on my life. I am not a blade of grass. The wind doesn’t keep me under its sway. Empathy is just a word. I could mouth it for you. Would you feel better if you followed that emptiness to my heart?
I can’t put myself in the shoes of the full moon. I bite my nails when I’m excited. I always leave an unlit clipping or two. I prefer to drive others to the brink of madness. I live for the horrified expression on their faces. I derive my fun from that last bit of awareness. I don’t like having my smile overshadowed. That’s why I will never understand the full moon.
Given the choice, I don’t think I would nip the moon in the bud. I like trees in full bloom and there’s no fear of crushing moonlight underfoot. Anyway, it’s only a goodbye for now. Even if I was loath to part and there was a touch of cruelty in my words, I’m sure to get a lifetime’s worth of do-overs.
You want a comparison? Here you have it. The last crescent of the moon looks just like the dirt under my fingernails. I’m sure my life will flash before my eyes. Cruelty. Indifference. Selfishness. Venting. What do you say we cut it short? I won’t have any regrets. I will just wash my hands of my life and watch it go down the drain. Right back to the darkness of space.