Published in The Quill on November 19, 2014:
http://www.amazon.com/Quill-Fall-2014-ebook/dp/B00PNVT6PG
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On being overweight (whatever that means)
Even if you were the moon, they would complain about how much space you took up in the sky, how you were too bright, wanted too much from the stars, demanded more light than the others.
And when you shifted, from waning to full to waxing to waning, they would remind you of how instable you were, how much of a hassle it was to keep track of your instability, your need for attention. Have you tried to be a vegan yet? All the stars are doing it.
You have tried. In fact, last week was your third try – an attempt, they call it – not enough, they emphasize, try again, they say this as if it is encouragement.
That’s when you found them - the celestial crescent, the earthshine, the perilune, how the lacus are lakes without lakes, why the Gibbous is brighter either way, especially during conjunction – all strung together in pearls.
You are a full the night you return.
As you reflect off the lake, you see Selene, Hecate, Mani, Tsukuyomi, Iah, and Thoth. You tell the stars to look, to breathe your reflection, to succumb to the glow and the beauty of it all, that you are not alone—
They laugh.
Say how historical that is, how out-of-touch you are, how myths aren’t mirrors, how you - you are not a mystery at all.
But when you died – if you died – (we still do not know) - they do not wonder where you went. They spin, spin, spin the entire night home, only once confessing to how empty the sky is without your shine.
But every night they burn.