ORIGINS: The prop of the first character in the original series had two panda bears that looked like crescent moons trying to bite a poor girl’s head off. And we started wondering what a pair of crescent moons would do with many sharp little teeth.
I am tired of borrowing light that has already grown cold. I think I will borrow teeth for a change. Sharp teeth. Warm teeth, that know the taste of blood and will never forget it. I can learn to be patient like a crocodile. I can wait for the perfect prey to alight in my mouth. One that won’t taste of indifference like sunlight does. My prey will taste of blood. And I will finally learn to feel alive and treasure my memories.
I am the Moon, why would I want shark teeth in my mouth? I am already trapped in an endless cycle. Rinse and repeat. Bye-bye my light, welcome back. If I wanted teeth, I would borrow them from the Milky Way. Never from a shark. I would want something that fell and never came back to haunt me. Bye-bye my childhood, thank you for letting me grow up, and not coming back to enable me every time I feel like hiding from my life.
On full moonlit nights a bat shows me his teeth. He offers to bite me, and I refuse. That’s our dance. I don’t want to turn into a vampire. I don’t want this lonely emptiness to feel like a grave, not even more than it already does. If I could, I would get rid of the light that clings to me altogether. I would scrape it off my bones, and let the emptiness take its place. Until I rotted away. Until I became part of space, and I finally felt whole, like I belonged. But I have no teeth. And that bat refuses to lend me his. Because he wants to belong too. Blood from my blood. That is what he wants to become. But I can’t. Because my bones already know what that loneliness feels like.
Do I look like an egg to you? I am sorry, little bird, but I am not for you. I know that you are eager to face the world. I know that you feel ready; I can see the tooth in your mouth. But I am not an egg, and I can’t let you break me. I am the Moon. I have a place. I have a purpose. And all I can say is that I am not for you. I may have broken off the same earth as you, but your wings and I don’t belong to the same sky. If you were a little fish things may have been different. Maybe I could have entrusted my dreams to you. But you are not. And I can only keep shining.
Smiles make me uncomfortable. Even the ones that don’t show any teeth. Because I know that they are there. Lurking under the surface. In the dark. Dying to bite off everything that I am. No one ever told me that everybody wants something. At least not using words. My skin is littered with bite marks, those are the lessons I will never forget. They look like crescents. They remind me of the Moon. Smiling, always smiling, because everybody wants her, and her teeth are sunk deep.
I was told that in order to be happy I would have to let go of everything. That greed and envy were the things that made the world go round, and round, and round. That the Moon kept sharpening her teeth even in her sleep. That she had tasted light, and she would keep biting off more, more, more, because it would never feel like enough. And the only way to ward off those bite marks was to let go of everything I had, of everything I was, that others would covet. I did as I was told. But sometimes I can’t help wondering why this happiness tastes so much like hollowness.
I don’t mind, my dearest Moon. You can sink your teeth into me. Through my memories and my blood, until you reach my soul. You can drink from me, if it will quench your thirst. I know that sometimes light is not enough. That the lies we want to see, the ones that make life more palatable, aren’t always enough. That sometimes we need a little bit of truth, to still have a reason to go on with our lives. I don’t know if mine will be the beautiful thing you deserve, but I understand loneliness too, and you are welcome to it.
The Moon tried to sink her teeth into me for the first time a while ago. I haven’t kept track, but she is still here and it doesn’t seem like she will be giving up any time soon. The Moon wants me to borrow something from someone else, like she does. But I already have my own words; I already have my own likes and dislikes, and I don’t see the point of borrowing someone else’s.