Ode to a Crescent Love

I’ve never cared for another sound the way I do for that of her footsteps in the winter. As we make our way across the empty park, the impossibly light and crunchy tap, tap, tap of her destroyed sneakers on the packed snow is nearly enough to make me believe in the supposed magic of tonight. I told her I loved her a couple of days ago, and even before that I know she could tell, but as we walk in this incredible light and look for falling snowflakes twinkling in that way she adores, I want to say it again. There’s no time: tonight is the moon party, and we’re going to be late, and as always she’s running at near full speed through the streets of her neighbourhood that I now get to call home a few days a week. We’re out of breath but smiling as the icy air penetrates our systems. From the very first time we walked side by side I noticed our strides were the same in size, and it pleased me to know I would never have to slow down for her.

We turn a corner and between two sharp breaths she tells me an anecdote about the people I’ll meet tonight. I listen, bewitched or entranced or something else a lot less poetic, but I’ve heard this one once or twice already and very quickly my mind wanders elsewhere. I’ve crossed paths with some of her friends before, taken shots of mysteriously sweet yellow-green liquids and danced to late 90s pop hits in dark student residences with them before, but this is different. It feels like completely new territory, as if this time I’ll be stepping into a world that is entirely theirs instead of meeting somewhere in the middle. The moon, perfect and round, looks down at me, but instead of the comfort that usually washes over me on nights such as this one, I can feel the tough knots in my neck and shoulders swell in size. I imagine them, these strangers she knows so well, in their elaborate outfits, perfectly crafted in accordance with the party’s theme, setting up candles for the ritual all over an apartment decorated to the gods by the hands of a pro. I picture their faces, animated with a passion sprite- or witch-like, as they prepare to tell tales of successful romantic encounters born from endless failed spells. My back tenses further, and I pray for her story to pull me back down to Earth, but there is still so much to think about, endless scenarios to prepare for.

She slips, or so I think, but I can never tell if she twirls and glides across the icy sidewalks on purpose or not; it’s her favourite prank to pull on me. As she falls to the floor, slides across the pavement and lands into a divot full of snow on the street, her boisterous, ever-distinguishable laugh echoes between the tall buildings that surround us and completely fills the street. Her moonlit, shiny eyes and glowing teeth pull me from my stupor and I let her pull me to the floor as well; I rarely know how to say no to her. She tells me a new story, a rare one I haven’t already heard her mix and remix for me or others in a million and a half ways before, and this time I give her my full attention. The way her mouth rounds around the full names of every featured character of every tale is my favourite thing about her, the way she gesticulates excitedly while she tells me a close second. Eventually, my hand on her thigh, hers on my chest, I picture the party again, I see backlit silhouettes moving about in a spacious yet decidedly unwelcoming living room. I can almost perfectly make out the odorous bedroom with its clean sheets on a shared bed and fluffed pillows that accept only some lovers, and why would I leave this instant here with her to go experience that one? In my mind, I try to conjure up the bony, jewel-adorned hands with fingers that know exactly which pages of the tarot book to land on, the ones that will guide us all tonight, and I know she doesn’t even believe in tarot, so I wonder why she’s taking me there at all.

Before I can voice any of these thoughts though, she gets us up and walking again. She jumps, she bounces between snow-covered fire hydrants and the colourful doorsteps of dormant homes, never tired and never bored and certainly never boring. I wish we were asleep, just like these quiet, unlit houses. I wish we were headed to her place instead, walking hand in hand and wearing the falling snow and the moonlight just like crowns atop our hair. Mostly I just wish the promise of sleep between her arms was near. But we make it to the moon party, and she knocks with her signature, comforting knock, knock, knock on the door. While we wait I imagine the questions they’re going to ask and the things they’ll say, the so where exactly did you meet and how long has it been and have you ever participated in a moon ritual before and oh really well you’re going to learn. Before I can start chewing on my nails and then my fingers and then all the way down to the bone she takes my hand, and I turn to her expecting to meet her eyes but she’s looking up at the sky. At last, this I don’t need to imagine. She’s brilliant, and she belongs in this light, and I allow myself to imagine her answers to it all, her we met in a place we both belonged and happened to be in at the same time and it’s been a month and neither of us has ever been to one of these but I wanted you all to meet and we’re very excited to be here.