the path to the moon

one

i remember the rays of resplendent light splashing down on her face, turning the little hairs on her jawline golden, and the freckles that littered her face turning dark against her pale skin, like craters on the moon. i don’t think she was aware of how intensely beautiful she was. it was the kind of beauty that wasn’t classic, but it was a splendour that inspired songs and stories and dreams.

that’s the thing about free creatures: they see the world in the most honest and fragile way possible, but they choose to love it anyway, and so the light from the sun beams under their clothes and from the notes in their voice. the taste of her name brings a moan to my lips even to this day, for her smile alone  had lit a fuse in me that refused to burn out. there’s no way i could go back to the way i was before i had met her. she shined brighter than any star in the sky. i guess her skin was a map, and i wanted to explore the world.

but she was always lonely, maybe because she built walls instead of bridges. and all i wanted to tell her was that she was a mosaic, because although they’re made from broken pieces they’re still works of art and so was she. all i wanted to tell her was that she was a butterfly, unable to see her own beauty when it was painfully obvious to me. all i wanted to tell her was that she was a flower, and the only one planted in my garden of thoughts. she didn’t understand that darkness itself is a form of light, because it taught us to hear and not see. and so she destroyed herself so others could not, because of that darkness, for happiness to her was like a moth, the harder she grabbed for it the harder it flew away. and maybe what i didn’t realise was that she was my happiness, the moth i was trying to grab for no reward. she was never going to be defined by society’s labels, much less be defined by the love she could have gave. although, despite her ice queenliness, i knew there was a delicate heart beneath the surface, one that she was too frightened to put into someone’s hands, because every single glass object will come to the same end: an abundance of shattered pieces of someone’s mantle. but maybe, just maybe, if she had given me her glass heart, i could have wrapped it in an iron lock, so no one could ever see it unless they had the key. and how desperately i wanted to key.

how desperately i want it still.