“Why does the moon follow us?”
I asked my father
As we drove past beige houses
Mixing with white mailboxes.  
I couldn’t see his face from the back seat
But I knew he smiled when I heard him
Laugh and shake his head.
“Honey, she’s following you,”
He said, and I looked out the window
Smiling at my new friend.  
I was five.  

Now I know that without the sun
The moon is for the blind to see
And that it orbits the earth
Not me
And it doesn’t chase cars down southern highways
It sits lonely in space
Surrounded by nothing,

Scientia potential est
Is what I’ve been told
In my own tongue –
And I agree.
Never have I felt stronger
Than when I am bathed in light –
Filling my pumice skin and crater eyes
Until I can happily walk around
With as much certainty as a human can.
That hasn’t happened yet,
But the day’s coming
I know it.  

Yet I find myself wishing
The light immersing me
Was that of the moon,
Which cannot be,
How could it
When the moon only reflects
What the sun emits?
That knowledge doesn’t stop me from wishing
On the stars
I know to be dead ***** of plasma.

As a little girl I always slept with my window open
To let the dreams,
Made of fairies, roses, moonshine, and lullabies
Funnel through my ears
Into my empty head
In a stream of dust –  
I had nightmares sometimes,
But every shadow is a product of light,
And I was happy.
In time I went to school,
Now I know of dreams and nightmares
What they are made of, what they are not –
But I don’t have them,
And I sleep with my window shut now.  

Understanding is beautiful
Yet mystery is magical
And school takes magic and twists it
Until you’re ashamed for believing
In anything.  
I want to learn, I yearn for it
Like my head does air –
But why must I be mocked
For listening to the five year old on my shoulder
Who whispers fantastic dreams
I forget upon waking, blinking, thinking?

Thinking and dreaming
One heads, the other tails.
I’ve been taught to imagine
Is to forsake thinking,
That dreaming is the rot
Causing intellect to atrophy
So I stopped talking to the moon
Because by then I had been taught
It couldn’t hear me anyway.  










I want both,
And so I shall
Through fight, doubt –
The noose made of fear
Can be burned
And so it shall,
By the light of the moon,
My lovely friend,
Whom I know well,
And dream of often.  

I hope she chose
The right person to follow.