i'll never be a poet

moonboy

the moon lifted her pockmarked cheeks into a heavy smile, her freckles dancing over her hooked nose. "close your eyes, now," she spoke, in creamy alto lines, and the boy saw her etched lips draw to a closed "O" as he slowly shut his lids and waited with bated breath.

she breathed a foggy sigh over the boy's hair, and a silver mist descended like a cloud upon his tousles. shimmering diamond dust snowing into his black locks, lunar glitter glinting in the moon's faded glow.

then, some alternate gravitational force took over, earthen gravity no longer having a hold on the boy; first his hair lifted with the iridiscent flecks, then his feet, rising up in the suffused spotlight from the moon's steady face. like a bloated corpse in open water, the boy let the magic moon dust carry his limp limbs, his relaxed body turning gently in lunar current at a diagonal, a dynamic midair contrapostal sculpture of shimmering clay.

the boy relished the feeling of being cradled in moonlight. it was a wonderful, luscious feeling- no, experience- having every atom of his being injected and wrapped with the vibrating silver glow. this is love, this is life, he cried in his mind, the voice in his head so loud with certainty that he might as well have shouted it from the rooftops. undulating currents snaking, ebbing over and under and around and through his skin, oh, he adored the warmth blooming across every patch of skin he had, especially his glitter-dusted scalp, like many, many warm fingers massaging his hair. light was breathed into his nostrils, his eyes were streaming with the shine.

"hold me forever and ever," he gushed.

a dip in the atmosphere.

he found his body getting heavier and heavier, lowered to the ground by an invisible pulley. "no," he found the word escaping his lips, why? why are you stopping? the dust was settling, too, on the dewy grass like virgin snow. he searched the moon's face and found a rather strange, inexplicable expression drawn on her now sagging cheeks.

"what happened?" he tried again, taking care to suppress the anxious yearning in his voice. the moon lowered her veined lids, wispy lashes blinking slowly.

"close your eyes," she whispered. a quivering legato winding round his rooted body.

he did. behind his lids the bloom of white grew dimmer, then warmer and stronger into a burning vermillion, then a molten gold. heat was pressing itself onto his paper eyelids.

he opened them. it was dawn.

the boy had a very different relationship with the sun. the sun was much harsher on him, severity sliced into his red face in the frown lines. the sun liked to laugh at the boy, not kindly, spitting hissing lava onto the earth when he did so. the boy withered slightly in the sun's blaze, a hard pelt of yellow light grilled onto his soft, reddening skin.

the boy put a hand over his eyes to shield himself from this intense gaze. at this, the sun broke out into another round of mocking laughter, grating the wavering air with the noise.

"looking for the moon?" he questioned, sneering voice dripping with condescension.  his thin lips stretched over his sweating face slimily, peeled back over the pointed knives of his pale lemony teeth.

the boy didn't respond. he could feel his skin drooping down to the ground, the melting process beginning.

the sun issued another few short laughs. "i bet you asked her to stay with you forever."

these words smacked into the boy's soul, burning the flat sheet of essence in his frame. he felt himself heat up, in embarrassment, in indignance, in defence.

"it's better than having you around," the boy retorted.

"you can't even look at me when you say that," was the searing reply, and it was shamefully true. how could he bring his eyes to stare back in the sun's gaudy face?

the sun tutted, globs of fiery spit soaring from each click of his liquid tongue against the back of his teeth. the boy hated that sound.

"you should have known. she isn't yours to keep forever."