January's Moons

The grass beneath the blanket was growing. She could feel it under her bare ankles as she sat on the wooly fabric of a worn blanket, cross-legged on the lawn outside her bedroom. The place where the words had found her.

January’s moons make me think of you,

tonight's the biggest yet.

Blood moon and an eclipse.

“This hurts too much,” Amy whispered to the wind but waited for more. Tonight she would listen to everything the stars had to say.

Her hand shook, the pencil marked the page. Amy flipped the pencil around to erase the soft lines, brushed the leftover particles to the side, righted the pencil, and waited for the words to come.

I know you’re out there zooming through the stars.

What’s the view like, from between Venus and Mars?

Her stomach tightened and she felt the tears fill her eyes. Her fingers tighten around the pencil she held tight to the page. 

Wrapped in the comfort of darkness, she turned her eyes to the heavens. With so many questions left unanswered, she’d found comfort in the words she wrote when she sat in this spot in the darkness. 

She had tried to make the connection during the day, it wasn’t the same. There had been no messages she could not identify as her own. This space, this spot on the lawn under the three mesquite trees with their branches intertwined above her head was where she had learned to quiet her mind in order to tell the difference between the internal, external, and divine voices that filled her mind. If she was to receive what she desired, this very spot was where it would begin.

Amy settled herself again and let her mind float through her body to relieve the tension in her hips and lower back. She pulled her chin back to align her spine and with every breath in and out, visualized air in the shape of tiny round white crystals entering from all directions, taking any darkness that remained with it as it left her body.

These are the moments when I feel you the most

Your breath against my skin

A breeze cooled the summer night for just a moment. Goosebumps covered her arms. The words continued to bleed from the now liquid lead of the pencil she pressed to the paper.

When the moon is bright

I feel your light

Warming me from within

Amy closed her eyes and felt the glow of the dappled moonlight on her face. She tried to breathe it in, tried to calm her heart, her mind. These were not her words to write, she was but the scribe. The moon was the light by which she wrote and her muse was somewhere in the stars. Now. 

How different life had become instantly. Even now, the life of yesterday seemed so far away. She felt her heartbeat in protest, it was just yesterday. 

She straightened her spine. No, she did her best to gently remind the voice who enjoyed her sadness. The part of her that enjoyed living a life without risk, kept her from seeing if her jeans still fit and her freezer full of ice cream. The part that enjoyed binge-watching whatever had more than one season. The part that knew to be alone, was to be safe.

We were not meant to grow old together

Why? I can’t explain.

You went on ahead,

I’ll be there one day.

Save the seat next to you for me.

Tonight. The first night of what would be the rest of her life. She sighed. She was tired. Amy lifted the pencil, it felt too heavy. She let it fall back to the page in her notebook. She wished for the impossible and felt the truth sting her heart.

Our paths will walk together again

You made me who I am

Please, she begged the stars again. The tears spilled over her lashes, landing on the words she’d written, smudging what she needed to remember.

The deeper the love

The longer the pain

The bigger the hole left to heal

How long will it hurt like this? A deep breath was not enough to clear her head, her heart, or the pain in her soul. She let the pencil do what it needed.

The questions she asked tonight are different from the ones she first shouted, on that first night, to the darkness.

The moon moved across the sky in its slow and expected pattern. The clouds continued on their way, going to where the wind directed them to where they needed to be. The stars danced alongside and Amy waited, cross-legged on the blanket on the grass outside her bedroom, under the trees, under a blanket of darkness with the lights of heaven shining through, one hand holding the pencil, in the other the pad of paper and let her breath be all that mattered.

Time no longer existed while the world beneath her spun. The words continued to come, as long as she held the pencil to the paper.

When the horizon began to grow less dark, and the moon was soon to be no longer the brightest light in the sky, Amy opened her eyes. Sounds of the morning exploded into her ears, birds singing their welcoming and an owl hooted its goodnight as it began to bed down for the day. 

Amy stretched her legs in front of her, then lowered her back to the earth and looked up to see the last of the night sky. Venus was still shinning. She marveled at how different the sky looked in the summer than in the winter.

The notebook was full now, of all the things she would need to take her through the rest of her journey. Time would pass and eventually, the pain wouldn’t hurt so much and she would see how the ending of one story is the beginning of another. 

It would be up to her to take the stories of her soul into the future. To remember the one who’d shared this part of her life, but 

needed to go on to what was next for them, so she could experience what was next for her. 

She knew she would never be alone.

If ever I need to see you again,

I only have to look through

The hole you left in my heart.